


Sleeping Akira

by Notcreativewithnames



Category: Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Akira is a bean once again, Along with many other possible mystic creatures, Alternate Universe - Sleeping Beauty Fusion, Ann and Ryuji are chaotic morons, Ann the boys are being gay disasters again, Aurora!Akira, But he still bean, But he still wants Akira to go to sleep, Childhood Friends, Crying, Death, Drunk Ohya, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, First Kiss, Flowers, Futaba is Akira's birth sibling, Goro is a little sh-, Goro manages to be soft by accident sometimes, Goro suffers from crush denial, I lied about one of the tags, I tried making a dark joke but is it funny? idk, I went overboard describing crepes now I'm hungry, I'd adopt bab Akira if he existed, I'm a sucker for the cheese okay?, Inspired by Maleficent (2014), Just a pinch of jealous Goro, M/M, Maleficent!Goro, Maybe illusions?, Mild and Minimal Cursing, Morgana can't talk, Mostly one-sided enemies, Oh btw bird based fairies, Sleeping Beauty Elements, Small bit: Akira has astigmatism, So does Sojiro, Sojiro and Wakaba are Akira's parents, Some characters are hinted to be in here, Some hypnosis?, They're all trying thier best, Very Possible Blood, Willow O' Wisps, Wonder who'll be using THAT all thru this fic hmmm, Yes I did a dancing scene, Yusuke does what he does, along with other reasons, also my humor is so cheesy sometimes..., angst comes later, but 7 also got me with the soft, but he's also the crow and a fairy, but seriously he's doing palace maneuvers at age SEVEN, chap 7 kinda really hurts and I'm the writer, everyone else is a surprise, four chaps in I realize this is a valid tag to add, he just wants to feel the breeze dude, honorable ship mention: Souyo, it's complicated - Freeform, kinda slow burn, later rebellious Akira, little late to add this but I'm heavy with the banter, questionable babysitting, small birb facts here and there, so they are king and queen obviously, some good sister/mom Ann content, supportive beer aunt Ohya, surprise chapter 10 readers, sweet wing care/wing petting bullcrap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 66,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22761490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notcreativewithnames/pseuds/Notcreativewithnames
Summary: If Goro could've taken back the little pathetic curse and just got done with killing the future king right there, he would. However he can't. It's already done with and the king and queen are doing all they can to prevent their child's doom. Now he has to follow the boy and assure that precious prince Akira will drop dead…Or: Akeshu Sleeping Beauty Au!
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist, Akira/Makoto but not really..., Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji, Isshiki Wakaba/Sakura Sojiro
Comments: 94
Kudos: 290





	1. Well Wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People have spoken and I bring another Akeshu fairytale story! Like ‘Goro in Wonderland’, this is based on more than one version of Sleeping Beauty with several personal twists to it. (One I'll tell you now cause I think the story might be a little confusing for you guys if I don't say so: both Goro and Shido are technically Maleficent? Though Goro is also the crow which may or may not be somewhat odd but...since it's basically Maleficent's henchman....well, it just makes sense...plus it's more fitting for Goro and entertaining than being just some random prince ) Only thing I think that will be different about this compared to ‘GIW’ is that there’ll be no mention of the actual P5 world. This will be purely another world, just the characters' faces and personalities will stay the same...oh and I may have more than Goro and Akira's pov this time? It will likely be mostly Goro's again though. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the first chapter!

In a far off castle, there lived a king and a queen. Years into their reign of the land and standing strong. Connections with neighboring kingdoms were reliable and very few civilians went poor. Everything was great for them but they were most ecstatic for one reason only...their first heir had even finally been born after years of trying! Filled with nothing but excitement and joy, they decided to hold a grand ceremony for the little one. Invitations flew out everywhere and everyone made time to make it there. Guests of honor being three fairies who’d travel there with wishes for the prince’s future...what they wouldn’t expect however was a fourth fairy...who’d come out of the blue...and would cut a deep wound into their merry ruling. 

-

“Now make sure to stand straight and don’t say anything bad or do anything stupid...that means you, Ryuji.” A cardinal fairy by the name of Ann tells her comrades before the door of the castle that belonged to king Sojiro and queen Wakaba, patting her red dress down neatly, fixing her hair, and the reddish peach with grey tipped wings on her back folding down from their landing. 

“Why’re you only pointing your finger at me?!” One of the other fairies asks with a whine. A vulture fairy. More specifically, a griffon vulture fairy by the name of Ryuji who had put on the most formal clothing of his but only for this occasion, matching the dark wings tipped with pale gold in sections behind him. It was barely anything though...just a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, long length pants and all. Ann had tried to make him groom his hair before they left so it was slicked back but his blonde waves still came in (somewhat awkwardly too) so she just left it and let Ryuji ruffle it back to normal. Now while he was for the most part good moraled and he'd only punch someone if they deserved it, sometimes the fairy boy will say things that come off as...uncouth, being the reason for Ann’s quick lecture. 

“If anything, I’m more worried ‘bout Yusuke saying somethin’ weird and accidentally creeping out the guests...or even worse, the king and queen.” Ryuji comments, pointing to said Yusuke who was dressed fairly similarly to Ryuji but with the addition of a vest and looked at back and forth between his blonde friends, confused by the words spoken. Yusuke is a blue bird fairy, as seen by the blue wings that started light blue and faded darker and darker as they went down. He is somewhat tall, fair-skinned, and slick dark-haired. In future he would be considered by women, a rather handsome man too but due to his eccentric personality and seemingly nonexistent interest in things like romance, the advances will likely never go anywhere. While it was true that his behavior also sometimes caused trouble, Ann was sure his antics were harmless and he wouldn’t do anything that would get them arrested...probably. 

Ann only sighs at Ryuji’s complaint, already feeling worn and done before they even stepped inside but she wasn’t gonna let things get in the way today. “Look, sorry, just...both of you...behave, alright? This is a big day for the king and queen…and I don’t plan to be a jerk and ruin it for them.”, she pleads with finality, looking to them for a response. They both slowly nod, Yusuke still visibly confused somewhat but he looked like he understood mostly at least. 

“Thank you...now, let’s get going.” She says gratefully before she opens the door, letting the boys squeeze in before walking inside herself and closing the door behind her. 

The guests were all gathered around in the throne room, dressed in gowns and suits much like the fairies had dressed in for the celebration. Nothing but the fanciest attire. Some could be spotted dining on food and wine while others just conversed with one another, smiles small and wide on all of them. Despite having to be even more huddled because of it, the crowd had left room on the red carpet that led to the king and queen's thrones. Likely knowing they were arriving, tons of heads all turned to the fairies expectantly when they walked into the room and gave friendly waves. Giving short polite nods to everyone, the three mystical friends make their way to the end of the exquisite floor-fabric. 

Sojiro and Wakaba, sat on their thrones, wearing matching colored clothes that were all in shades of red, white and gold. Sojiro's outfit wasn't anything too extravagant, only really being a patterned, sleeveless robe over a white shirt and some pants but it looked high quality just by the way it was sewn. Wakaba's apparel however stood out a whole lot more than her husband’s choice of garments. Her gown had probably the biggest skirt out of anyone in the palace, fanned out widely from the seat she sat on. Her sleeves were long too and hung loosely by her wrists. The finishing touch on both their outfits though were the golden crowns sitting on top of their heads. On the left corner of them was a cradle with a small crown and many small details etched into the wood of it. Beige sheets inside, either laying flat in it or hanging as small bed curtains. No doubt the newborn prince's personal throne. 

Seeing the fairies, the two monarchs bow their heads to them as a greeting. The two boys also gave a bow while Ann gave a curtsy. Rising back up, Ann is the first to speak. 

"Thank you for the invitation, it's really an honor to be here." She says to them, sincerely. Living in the forest could get pretty boring sometimes so she was really excited to get an invitation. There was also the fact she genuinely respected them highly and so did the boys. 

"We wanted everyone to come so...it's nothing." King Sojiro replies nonchalantly but he did have a small smile on. Usually his expressions were very neutral but to be fair, he was celebrating the birth of his first son, the one who'd be his heir...he deserved this one day of breaking his stone king facade. 

"My statement still stands, your highness." Ann replies with a bubbly smile then looks meaningfully to the cradle. "Now, I know the little guy is hardly a year old but...I think he deserves a few gifts since the whole party is about him. Shall we get to the blessings?" She asked them politely. Ann let the king and queen know about her and her friends' plans before the ceremony in her response so they knew what to expect. 

"As long as it's not too much trouble for you." The queen answers, gleefully. 

"It's a piece of cake for us, don't worry." Ryuji assures the monarch, smiling confidently as he's already strutting over to where the prince was. Yusuke and Ann follow after, the king and queen watching them intently, curious on what kind of blessing they'd give their child. 

Peering into the cradle, the trio took in the future king's appearance. Not many features were present of course as he had yet to grow it all in but paled skinned Akira had black wavy fuzz on the top of his head that with one look, anyone would think it was sure to grow out into a mess of curls. And if looked at closely, his eyes would be seen when his lids opened a smidge from his nap to see who caused what new voice he heard before falling closed again. They were a rare grey color, very similar to king Sojiro but the prince's were a darker shade. His mother, the queen's genes of having dark-colored eyes most likely played a big factor in that. As for clothes...he simply wore a one piece that matched the very sheets he slept in. Fitting as the little bugger very well could melt into the sheets with how deeply he was napping. 

"So which one of you guys wants to go first?" Ann asks her friends with a wide smile. 

"Ain't you the one who suggested this?" Ryuji asks her with narrowed brows to which she shrugs. 

"I wanted to let you guys go first...I tend to change my mind last minute so I might think of something better to wish for him and if I go now it'd be too late to take it back…also I don't want to accidentally steal your wishes and make either of you have to change your minds. You guys are better at sticking to one thought than I am." she explains sheepishly, lightly scratching the back of her head. 

Ryuji nods and shrugs his shoulders hearing her reason. "Suppose that's fair." 

"...I wouldn't mind going first." Yusuke says with a resolute smile and Ryuji motions to the cradle. 

"Floor's yours." 

Yusuke walks over to the right side of the cradle, bringing his hand to his chest before leaning over the blanketed child. 

"Prince Akira, what I want for you is to see the beautiful things in this world but more and most of all...I wish others to see it in you...to charm anyone you meet as you'll be the kindest person they've ever known...understand people in a way most cannot...to those around you, you'll be truly unforgettable." And with a sprinkling hand motion, some blue dust falls onto Akira and seeps into his skin. 

"Aw, that's actually really sweet, Yusuke~" Ann cooed proudly to her blue winged friend while Ryuji starts to make a gagging motion, stopping it when Ann elbows him in the stomach. 

"Thank you, Ann...I believe it's your turn now, Ryuji." Yusuke says, moving back to left to switch with the vulture fairy. 

"Yeah, yeah…" Ryuji mumbles, moving to where Yusuke was and leaning on the cradle edge. Lightly to assure he wouldn't flip the thing over. "It's gonna be tough when your king one day...you'll probably have many battles to face...so-" Ryuji cups his hands together and blows into them before speaking again. "For my wish, I want you to have strength. The strength to fight for your cause, the bravery to keep your legs straight, and the will to go on till you are victorious." And with that Ryuji releases his clapped hands, making a slight fire crackling noise and golden dust floats down. Doing the same as Yusuke's wish. 

"Yep...I expected you to wish for something like that." Ann comments with the click of her tongue and a nod. 

"But it is a thoughtful wish, isn't it?" Yusuke praises genuinely and Ann can't help but nod, agreeing with him.

"Yeah...I have to give him credit there. It is a very thoughtful gift."

"Oh shut it." Ryuji scolds them but he had a condictary smile on him, showing no real irritation to the approving comments but instead cheer. "Anyway, your turn, Ann."

Switching places for the last time, Ann goes to stand on right and looks down to the prince thoughtfully before she's ready with a wish. 

"Prince Akira, I-"

Ann's wish was interrupted however by a strong breeze coming from the front door and what sounded like the loud squawking. Guests were also rather startled by the sudden draft, several of them scrambling for hats that got thrown off their heads. Flags that decorated the castle walls were flung back and barely hanging where they were placed. Everyone in the castle was ruffled so much that it would be a miracle if anyone could catch anything...and Ann did. Searching for the source of the squawking, she finds a crow flying up high and making a dive for the center of the ballroom.

' _No way...d-did...did that thing get the doors open?!_ ' She thinks. 

Ann didn't have even a second to get a single word about it in however because the minute the crow hit the ground, red smoke exhausted into the room and scares everyone even more. Terrified screaming of women and confused shouting of men was all that could be heard in the room, red was all that could be seen. Some guests would try to blow it away by flapping their coats at it. King Sojiro had even swatted at the air to help clear it, coughing when he'd inhale some of it. Despite their efforts to put it out, it seemed like it would never stop...'Seemed'. 

"Grand celebration here~" A soft, cruel toned voice spoke from the smoke. 

Slowly the cloud disappeared and in the place of the crow was a boy with medium length brunette hair. A fairy. Particularly, a crow fairy. His dark feathered wings draped over his shoulders almost like a cape and dragged on the ground. He was clothed in matching black clothes, a tight midnight shirt that was tied upwards with thin byzantine string and matching black pants. Across his collarbone was a short cape that only reached down little below his shoulders, made of matching feathers and secured together by a single silver chain. His hands couldn't be seen, hidden behind his back as his boots' buckles clinked as he walked up to the throne. He stops before the king and queen. Now up close, his pale face could be seen best by the king and queen. His face was average proportioned, all except his eyes. They were a tinge larger than most, making them stand out the most out of his more human-like features. However in the bright light of the tall, stained glass windows of the palace, the dark color that was expected from his eyes before he stepped into it shone more of a blood red. 

Assuming he was human, he'd look to be around twelve or thirteen years old as he stood just nearly five feet. However any fairies in general are born from more magic oriented means, not human oriented means which meant the boy could very well look older than he is. Just like the other three fairies in the room who were only a year or two despite their appearances. (Of course they’ll still likely grow to look older eventually but once they reach adulthood, it depends on the fairy if they want to evolve to an appearance older than eighteen to twenty.) The grin he was wearing now would be considered pleasant if it weren't for the unsettling aura he gave. 

"Such a big crowd too...all the kingdom's here, right?" The brunette hummed, looking to the trembling, disheveled onlookers before giving the royals an outwardly innocent, confused face. "...though it doesn’t look I was invited~" 

Some eyes in the crowd looked to their leaders with confusion, only for it to be mirrored. It appeared that the fairy knew them but...by their expressions, it seemed neither half of the couple even knew this young fairy existed. Which was an odd thing because Sojiro was known to be good at remembering faces of anyone who served under him (battle, chef, and etc.) and Wakaba greets all the villagers by name. There’s nobody they didn’t know. Unsteadily Wakaba answered him, "A-Apologizes. If we'd known you, we would've-"

"Not that I'd care about being invited to a party I wouldn't want to be part of even if it'd save my head..." The boy growls, soft expression turning to pure scorn which made the queen go tight lipped while the king's grip on his throne's arm tensed up. Taken aback Ann glances wide-eyed to her two companions who were stunned as well by the fairy's hateful demeanor. Being docile was a strong trait in the crow fairies, any fairy that could be asked would claim them to possess an almost unbreakable friendliness so for anyone to have a crow fairy act hostile and mean upon being greeted by them was...there's just something deeply wrong about it, wrong in ways that couldn't be explained. 

'No wonder he was giving us the hibbie-jibbies.' Ann thinks, rubbing her arms as her body shivers. 

"However, I'm not in the reminiscing mood so I'll spare sharing with you all why I'd rather be anywhere else but here.…" 

The crow fairy walks over to the baby cradle as he speaks, keeping his glaring red eyes on the king and queen while they only looked on with shocked confusion. "Rather, I should say why I’m here anyways...it's only fair.” he adds, neutral frown still on his face as his shadow looms over the prince. 

Sojiro glared slightly at his slow approach but made no move, wary of what the spiteful boy would do if he tried. “And that would be?”

The crow fairy finally pulls out his pale hands, one which had an ink colored ring decorated with a red gem and grips tightly onto the edge of the cradle. 

“I’ve also brought a gift for the prince~” 

At the statement, Ann and the other fairies angrily go to shelter over Akira so they could protect him but the dark clad boy makes a flicking motion and they go flying and slam backwards into the stone walls, struggling to break free after. Like they were pinned there by an invisible force for some kind of twisted taxidermy, unable to even move their arms or legs. The brunette is unfazed by his action however and just keeps talking. 

“Don’t worry...he’ll grow up the way the others had wished...” Promising words but the tone he spoke them in brought feelings to the couple that were nothing but perturbing. Some of the guards stepped a bit closer, hands ready to draw their swords but they go no further than that. Didn’t do any favors that he finally turns his sharp scowl away from them only to glare down at Akira, the infant somehow managing to sleep peacefully through all the hysteria going on around him. Letting out a huff, his pointer finger on his free hand starts to swirl in a circle, familiar red smoke following it. 

"However...at sunset on the day he turns eighteen, he'll have an accident...he'll prick his finger on a spinning wheel's spindle needle...." 

The red cloud grew larger and larger as the fairy spoke, turning into an almost tornado above him. The crowd behind backs away to avoid possibly getting tangled in with it. The trapped fairies and the monarchs stay where they were, only watching in horror. 

"Blood dripping in his hand, he'll then fall into a deep sleep…" His glare grew intense as he spoke, "...never to wake again..." He glances up one more time at Sojiro and Wakaba; finishing with the pointer starting to bend downward, "...and there's no spell or magic in the world that will save him from his fate." 

"No!" The queen shrieks, getting up to run to protect her child but it was too late. With the flick of his finger, the red smoke dove for the black-fuzz headed baby and the prince's body absorbed it like a dry rag in water to which the expression on the brunette’s face turns uncontrollably enraged to sadistic glee. 

"Arrest him!" Sojiro orders angrily, standing up from the throne and the soldiers charge without hesitation. The fairy’s black wings fan out and with a smile, he flies into the sky with another gust of red smoke which blows the men to the ground. His evil giggling morphed into the same cawing from before as he flies to make his escape. 

“Get back here, you monster!” Ryuji war cries, turning to his vulture form to chase after the miscreant and he manages to catch up with him but only to slam head first into the window the crow fairy goes out easily while his bird form is too large to fit through. Defeated, he turns back and falls down to the ground to slam his fist into the stone wall. 

“Almost had him too…! I swear if I ever see that cackling freak again, I’ll-!” He starts growls angrily before Ann comes up next to him and gives him a nudge, pointing out to the thrones. All three fairies' hearts broke at what they saw. Sojiro had his head in his hands, thumbs rubbing his forehead in frustrated despair while Wakaba was leaning solemnly on him, now holding her blanketed son close to her. All of them couldn’t help but wonder what hit the black clad fairy in the head for him to be cruel enough to cast such a horrible curse on them. The king and queen were always respectful and noble rulers...they couldn’t have possibly done anything to make anyone hate them this much so it truly was a mystery to why they were targeted. Much less through their newborn son. 

“How horrible…” Yusuke simply comments, frowning deeply at the misery emanating in the room. Ryuji and Ann nod in agreement. 

“Poor king and queen...I can only imagine how terrible they feel right now..” Ryuji comments, knees criss-cross on the ground and his chin resting on his right fist. 

“Miserable, I’m sure...If only we could help them…” Ann adds and suddenly, a light bulb seems to turn on in both male fairies’ heads to which they exchange looks before staring with light in their eyes at Ann. She only stares at them in confusion. 

“What?” She questions them suspiciously when they don’t say anything. 

Ryuji jumps from the ground with an optimistic smile. “You dummy, that’s what! You can help! You still haven’t given the prince your wish!!”, he answers excitedly while shaking the girl fairy’s shoulder. Ann’s eyes only widen at the suggestion. 

“M-Me?! B-But that guy said it himself, nothing in the world is gonna stop the curse! And even if we could stop it, I don’t have that power! None of us do!!” She shouts, bewildered by her blonde friend’s suggestion. 

“Perhaps...but that’s not to say we can’t change the conditions a little.” Yusuke tells her, smiling widely. The conversation catches the king’s ear and he looks up to listen to them better. Ryuji nods in agreement to the blue bird fairy’s argument.

“Exactly! What he said! You can give prince Akira a way out of it! You can still save him!!” He shouts before he starts shoving her toward the king and queen who had both stood up in listening to the fairies’ idea, expressions showing a small sparkle of hope. Ann weakly struggles with her friend, heels and wings dragging on the ground as she’s pushed to the far end of the throne room once more as she looks back at her two companions with anxiety. 

“B-But I-!” She starts to protest but Ryuji has already shoved her forward and makes encouraging motions to the king and queen, mouthing ‘Go on!’. 

“Just try your best...I’m confident that if anyone can do it, it’s you, Ann.” Yusuke tells her from next to Ryuji, an uncharacteristic ‘rooting for you’ look on his face. Ann whines nervously at all the overwhelmingly positive gazes of her friends and the royal couple but she takes one look at the still sleeping prince and she puffs out her chest, rubbing her hands together in determination as she starts working her magic. Pink sparkles flowing out of her fingers as she places her finger tips over the infant’s forehead. 

“Prince Akira...there may be nothing to stop you from fulfilling this prophecy...I can’t keep you from the deep sleep you’ll fall into...but I promise you, you **will** wake up. For my gift.. I will give you an escape from your slumber...from the one you truly love and mutually, you’ll wake from your deathly curse to their first kiss.” 

And to the relief of the fairies, it works. The pink mist twirls around the prince before disappearing, assuring them, the kingdom, and the king and queen most of all that Ann’s gift was accepted. 

-

High in the sky, Goro is soaring as a crow. Although he couldn't really physically do it at the moment, he was grinning with pure contentment. The deed's finally been done, just like planned. 

'I should get back to Shido and tell him the news.' He thinks as he flaps his wings hurriedly. 

Shido. A sharp featured and rather grand-sized fairy who's been helping Goro for awhile now, being the one who took him in and formulated this plan up. Upon looking at him, you would never figure he was a fairy. He looked like any other human, dressed in a pure black robe and no wings to be found behind him. Only thing that gave him away really was his magic, which he had a habit of casually using even when it was unneeded. When he had met with Goro, he explained that a human had stolen his wings long ago and it pains him to look at the scars, which is the reason he wears the long coat anywhere at anytime. Goro never asked any more about that however, more focused on his own goals despite being clueless what to do. While it was hard to deal with Shido sometimes and he could get demanding for someone so laid back and idle, he wouldn't have known to throw the blame on the owners of the crown if he hadn't crossed paths with him or what punishment to bring them. (Most crow fairies were more oftenly friendly natured after all, hardly capable of planning things like revenge without help)

Prolonged hours of flying, Goro reaches the abandoned castle on the mountain he and Shido resided in by night fall. Tall and built out of stone that had been dirtied over the past years and partially damaged. It was a mystery how it got damaged and when, as it was that way the day him and Shido found it. It didn't matter to Goro at the moment though. With a flappy swoop, he dives down to the clearing of the castle where Shido stood. Or rather...sat as there was a large stone chair there and the bald-headed fairy was lounging in it. (Goro guessed a long time ago that it must've been the throne room of the castle when it was intact.) Once again, he's shifting back to his fairy form in another red cloud when he lands on the ground before his guardian. 

"It's done, I assume?" Shido asked Goro, barely sparing him a glance and seeming distracted twiddling with his crystal clear ball staff and messing with his magic once again. Green smoke burrowing inside the glass on his staff. The brunette sighs, somewhat annoyed but nods to him. 

"Yes, I've casted the curse...By the time the prince reaches maturity, he’ll be gone. Like we planned." He confirms. 

"I'd hope so...otherwise, this all would've been pointless and you'd have failed in a place we can’t get back up from." Shido comments, grabbing his staff and standing up from the throne. "Unfortunately though...I don't think this will be as easy as we'd hoped.", Shido adds.

His eyes widened at Shido, confused at the statement. Did he mess up? Did the curse not work? He was sure it did! The baffled crow fairy doesn't have to worry forever though as Shido gives his explanation. 

"I've been observing through my staff...you've done well with the curse. However…" 

He leans his staff toward Goro and with a swipe of his fingers over the glass ball, it shows the king urgently giving orders to his men. 

"The king and queen are not letting this be without a fight...the king is gonna try to confiscate all the spinning wheels before the prince's death date. They plan to conceal them all….and almost all the kingdom is willing to comply, even if they end up having to burn them." 

As he says this, he sees the men marching out to the village. Supposedly to do the quest Shido spoke of. The kingdom was really willing to do this all for the sake of the prince's safety...? It was surreal and hard for Goro to believe honestly...

"While this isn't such a big problem as it would take long years if they started to burn them all...it's not the only threat and the other one is more worth worrying about...see, one of the fairies at the ceremony-" 

Another swipe and it shows the blonde, cardinal fairy from before appeared. She had her fingers over the baby prince’s forehead and her magic was circling him. 

"She's managed to make a path...not to undo the curse but to allow a way for it to be broken..." He finishes which immediately sets an alarm in Goro and he breaks into a panic that he had ruined the plan. Shido remains insufferably calm however as he keeps up with his explanation. 

"How is...not of much concern for you to know the details of…what matters for you to know is, I have a very simple solution to fight against it. For you to fight against it." 

The brunette snapped out of his fear and looked curiously at Shido...strange he wouldn't share what the blonde fairy had done to mess with his curse...but he guessed that wasn't so important to speak on if there was an easy fix for it. 

"And...that would be?" 

Shido swipes his hand over the top of the staff again, the staff now showing a small, white, wooden cottage. Supported and roofed with red and grey stone. The windows and doors are made of dark brown colored wood. Overgrowth had taken over most of the right side. 

"The same fairies will plan to keep the prince here...an extra caution requested by the king till he grows up...they're planning to have several maidens visiting there eventually and spend time with the prince…" He twists his fingers and the cottage zoom out into what seemed like a sky map. 

"You shall travel there and watch over the prince as the days pass. You won't be doing much till he starts talking but all you'll have to do is meddle when the maidens are there. Make things go wrong...create chaos for them...irritate them so they can't handle being near the cottage. By doing that, the chances for the spell to be broken will go down from little to none." Shido places his hand over the top of the staff, making the images disappear as he looks up to Goro.

"...sound like a simple enough task?"

Goro nods. It really was simple. He used to play almost harmless pranks all the time so it'd be more than simple for him to mess with them but...

' _This is it? We just watch, intervene when I have to and...just see to it that it happens?_ ' He couldn't help but think now. This honestly was a rather long time to just wait for the offspring of his enemies to meet their demise. Drastic effort too. Especially on Goro's part. He'll have to spend years watching over this little brat. ' _Why couldn't we have just taken the chance when we had it..why later and not now?_ ' He thinks, internally enraged somewhat by this. 

Shido must've sensed his uncertainty because he adds, "For the triumph, Goro...it'll be all the more worth it when it happens that way...if we all have more time...if they have to dread the day of the prince's certain death through the whole boy's life till time’s up for him. Fitting for them too, don't you agree? And...you were the one who chose for it to be more painful over fast in the first place. Didn't you?" 

Goro stares at the floor, still not quite pleased with explanation but nods at the statement. "I suppose so." 

Shido nods. "...are we clear on your objective then?" 

Goro thinks it over then slowly sighs with his second nod as an answer. 

"How shall I get there again?"


	2. Little Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to pressure any artists out there cause I'm an artist and I know it can be annoying when people beg you to draw stuff for them but if any of you decide to draw fanart for this, please let me know. I'd seriously love to see it! Anyway, the second chapter is here and shenanigans begin! Please enjoy!

Finding the cottage was not a challenge once Goro learned to memorize the magic projected map Shido provided him before taking off. If he did get lost, he would’ve still had no trouble at all anyway because upon half a day of his flight there he happened to pass the carriage the fairies and the prince were traveling on. The carriage (It's design making it look more fit for transporting crops than people) was moving rather slowly too as the one holding tightly onto the reins, being the cardinal fairy, was likely not accustomed to using this form of transportation. Seeing her expression, so clearly feeling out of place and afraid of making one single mistake in steering the horses was honestly a bit amusing. However, Goro couldn’t giggle otherwise he’d bring attention to himself. In his crow form, he barely had any control of his volume and his beak wouldn't allow him to smile so he only observes quietly. 

Spying on them closer, Goro saw that the fairies were also trying to hide from prying eyes. Their wings had been spelled away and they’ve traded their fancier clothes for the attire of everyday commoners. A plain attempt at trying to ruse him and hide the prince more. He didn’t understand why they hadn’t been more elaborate on their disguises as he saw their faces at the ceremony but he guessed if he didn’t have inside information on where they were, he’d see the back of their heads that were tied in rags and pass by them without giving a first glance. Flying closer and staying wary of the trio’s eyesight, he listens in as they conversed in the wagon. 

“For real, no magic at all?!”, the blonde boy asks the girl loudly and distraughtly from the back of the carriage where he sat with the tallest of the group and their supplies (likely things to fill the kitchen, bedroom, living, just all rooms) for the next eighteen years, laying against the fence that kept them both from flying into the curb. 

‘ _Rather brash one, isn’t he?_ ’ Goro thinks, remembering how easy it was to get away from him at the party. For someone who’s wings mimicked those of a decently intelligent bird, this fairy seemed to be lacking in that department. 

“Don’t be so loud!...And the king said not to draw any attention to ourselves and magic is the BIGGEST way for us to do that. If that crow fairy caught sight of us using it, we’ll be exposed and who knows what trick he’ll pull if that happens.” the girl argues, eyebrows furrowed as she’s still trying to eye up the road carefully. 

“But how are we supposed to manage without magic? We use it for practically everything-!” The blonde boy continues to whine but the girl cuts him off before he can go on a rant. 

“No complaining. It’s what we have to do so we’ll just have to learn to manage.” She barks at him, tone clear that it was all she was going to say on the matter from here. 

The blonde boy frowns at the floor in the back till the taller friend gets his attention. 

“Are you that adamant on putting the monarch’s son in danger, Ryuji?” He asks and lifts the wrapped up bundle that Goro guessed was little Akira higher on his chest which surprises the brunette a little. He honestly thought that the previously blue winged boy would be the last to hold the child. If he had one guess to why he was given the child though, it would be his poise. The wagon was travelling on such a bumpy road but the odd fellow’s body didn't jostle an inch which probably helped immensely when handling an infant. 

At the quiet man’s accusation, Ryuji’s eyes widened in shock and he immediately got to protesting. “N-No! Of course I want the little guy to be safe, Yusuke...it’s just...difficult adjustment to make is all…” He scratches the back of his neck before adding, “...but like Ann said we have to do it...even though it sucks.” 

Yusuke simply nods, still holding the child close and replies, "I suppose I can understand that reason. I'm sure I'll manage as well though."

From there till they finally reach the cottage, they don’t talk much after that which makes Goro nearly dive downward in boredom but Ann’s voice shouting “We’re here!” snaps him out of it. As they slow up to the front of the cottage, Goro immediately swoops into the trees to hide and watch from there. The boys get to lifting all the luggage while Ann takes the prince from Yusuke to gently lay him in a basket. After tucking him in, she lifts up the basket by it's high handle and brings him into the house. Cooing at the baby while she did to which Goro finds himself grimacing and shivering in disgust at. 

Some time passes before all the luggage had been put away by the fairies and he’s in the clear to get close again. With another quick dive, he goes to the window and peeks to see what’s happening. Ryuji and Yusuke were still at work, putting all the things they had brought into the cozy little cottage into their respective places. Ann however was sitting down now and she had a long list out, crossing things out with a feather pen. Likely to keep track of what they had as she’d glance every second to see what either of the boys had in their hold and muttering their names as she crossed another word out. 

' _Where is..?_ ’ his mind wonders, noticing that the prince was missing. The thought is cut short however as he only has to look down to see the basket the prince laid in...the prince that was now looking straight at him. The little prince is exactly as he remembered the last time he saw him. Pale skin, black fuzz, and round cheeked. His eyes were a new feature to Goro though as the little pest was sleeping when he had made his entrance into the castle. Now open wide, he could tell Akira would grow to have rather large eyes but they’d be just the right size to not look like they belonged to a doll. They’d be pretty close though...the dark steel eyes shone as they stared up at him blankly with pure wonder...it made Goro’s skin crawl. 

‘ _Stop staring at me, creep…_ ’ Goro thinks, unable to make any repulsed faces at him, unfortunately. He can squint his eyes at the tiny beast...but the prince only responds with a wide smile. Goro puffs up his feathers at the cheerful response, hoping to wipe that smile off his face. The aggressive stance does nothing to intimidate the infant however as the prince just keeps smiling. Menace even starts to giggle at him!

‘ _You little cretin…!_ ’ He thinks but wishes he could growl at the source of his anger. Akira was only a baby so it’s not like he would be intentionally mocking him. His brain isn’t even developed enough to comprehend thoughts like that right now...but Goro feels insulted by him regardless. Sleeping death still had to happen but it wouldn’t hurt to scratch his eyes out now, right?...Yeah, it would. Akira needs eyes to find any spinning wheels...curses. 

“What’cha laughing at, little man?” He hears Ryuji’s loud but muffled voice speak along with some steps from inside and Goro immediately ducks, barely avoiding being seen. 

‘ _Keep in mind to go to the pest free window next time, Goro…_ ’ He thinks as he cautiously glances up to see Ryuji looking out the window before stepping away and looking down, likely to the one who was laughing up a storm just minutes before but was now silent as a lamb. 

“Hmm, nothing out there..what did you see?” He hears the blonde asks Akira. Like he’d receive a coherent reply from the blanket bean. 

“Food! Of all things, we forget food for Akira!! We’re idiots!” Ann is heard shouting from inside which gets Goro’s attention again but he doesn’t spy through the window this time and instead listens. 

There’s a slam and another shout from Ann, “Are you sure you two brought in everything?!” 

There’s a pause where they most likely gave her some sort of unsure response because after it, there is a frustrated groan before he hears hurried stomping with two other sets following him and then he sees all three fairies step outside. Ann rushing to the carriage and hopping on the rider’s seat once more, the two boys following after her. Fear far gone it would seem for her as she cracks the reins and the horses immediately dash off back into the forest. 

“You're still not used to controlling the horses yet, moron! Where’d your jitters from earlier go?! Hey!!!” Ryuji yells as he chases after her and the wagon...by foot. Yusuke seems lost a moment, glancing between the road and the cottage. Inevitably he does make his decision. With a quick snap of his fingers, Goro hears every window and the front door lock before he sees Yusuke run off after the blonde duo. 

Even Goro in that moment had to wonder, ‘ _What kind of idiots leave a baby alone?_ ’. The ones hired by the king to watch over the future ruler apparently. It was far from his problem though...it didn't matter to him. They could mess up as much they could with watching over him. It didn’t bother Goro in the slightest. In fact, he flies into the trees and burrows himself on one of the branches to take a nap. Not bothered at all.

-

Only it bothers him later as it’s near sunset when he is abruptly woken with a headache and by the shrieking cries of Akira, groaning loudly. In his sleep, he had turned to his fairy form but he didn't bother to worry about that as he sat up to gander around and figure out what had the prince distressed. That’s when he noticed the wagon was not there...it was still missing. 

“They’re still not back? How long does it take just to get food?” He mumbles, somewhat exasperated as he climbs off the tree. From the house, Akira lets out an especially sharp scream and Goro winces in pain as his headache grows and pierces into his skull even more. He tried covering his ears to block out the loud noise but the baby’s wailing was endless and only made him even more irritated. Time passes before he thinks; as much as he wanted to see this child suffer...this had to end. Stomping over to the front house, he flicks his finger at the door and it slams open. 

The whining and whimpering got louder and louder as Goro makes his way inside the house and uses the noise to find the makeshift crib again, not bothering to view the interior much. It was all mostly wood anyway. He finds the window Akira’s basket was and walks over. Peering over the prince, he sees fresh tears flowing down the newborn’s face as he writhes helplessly in his blankets. 

“If you are begging for your food, you’ll have to wait for the half brains to get back, your highness.” He hisses quietly to Akira, glaring down at him. 

Eyes, midnight black in the dim light, blink in surprise as his weeping halts and the prince slowly looks up to the leering crow fairy next to him...same look as before. Goro raises an eyebrow at him, surprised seeing the little one come out of his misery so fast. He doesn't have experience with children but even he knows, they don't stop crying this quick and quite frankly, he was winging it when he was trying to scare him silent. 

“Nothing else to say..?” He asks Akira lowly and the black fuzz-head only blinks at him, a response the brunette expected. He steps away from him and turns to leave. 

“Well, guess you’ll stay quiet no-” When Goro is stepping out the door however, the previous assault on his ears makes a valiant return. He growls at this and turns to stomp back over. 

“What now?!” He almost shouts but manages to stay mindful of his volume and not to make things worse for himself with more of the tiny human’s screaming. Again, the noise stops when he speaks to Akira and he’s stared at by those beady eyes again, prince's nose sniffling. 

“What the…” Goro mumbles, confused by this but then he gets an idea...a test to try. He slowly moves and steps backwards...the minute he does, he hears the barest hint of a whimper. Stepping back over, he hears the whimpering go quiet. And repeat. And it’s the same results…He shakes his head down at the pale face, now burying his face in the blanket in his little, weakly clenched hands as he keeps his eyes on the crow fairy. 

“...that’s it? You were just lonely?” He snarls a little and after a moment of standing next to him, he sees creases in the child’s cheeks and his eyes squint somewhat, small indications of the smile from before. Goro rolls his eyes and hesitantly pulls a chair next to the basket, the chair's seat facing Goro. 

“You’ve got royal blood, alright...spoiled brat..” He grumbles as he sits himself down, crossing his arms over the top rail of his seat, which said brat giggles at and Goro glares at the laugh box. 

“If you only could understand what I’ve done...if I told you and you did, you wouldn’t be smiling...you’d go right back to bawling your eyes out, red and dry.” he tells him. Despite the malicious statement however, the prince rests back on his bed in content now that Goro wasn’t leaving. Though it'd probably take a bit for his face to recover from all the crying. 

‘ _If only he could understand…_ ’ he thinks, still glaring down at him but this behavior made Goro have to wonder. Why was the prince so...cheerful around him? His eyes were closed as far as he saw when he cursed the little thing but his demeanor hasn't exactly been friendly so far...if the prince was awake then though, how would he react now? Would he act the same or scream with terror like he imagined him to? Would he even recognize him?

' _Probably not_.' He thinks, subconsciously doing some rythmatical tapping on his chair and staring into the space of the kitchen. 

"Ggh…Ggh!!" He hears the prince gurgle at him and it snaps from Gore's thoughts to fume at him again. 

"You've already trapped me into sitting here without any ankle ball chains. What else could you want?" He asks, not actually bothering to get any request but he gets one anyway, spoken in arm motions. Akira lifts his arms from underneath the blankets, flapping them up and down. He merely rolls his eyes at that at first, thinking that the baby was only doing that because he saw his crow wings. Regardless, he gives them a small flap anyway. The prince keeps the insistent flying motion going though. 

Goro's red eyes widen at that. He couldn't possibly…But out of his own curiosity, he envelops himself in the familiar cloud of red and once it cleared, it was his feet now that were holding onto the chair. Akira squeals happily at the transformation, going as far as to release his hands from the blanket prison and making grabby motions to him. 

' _He recognized me when I came to scold him even though I was just a bird when he first saw me…._ ' He thinks as he hops onto the table and rests his talons on the basket's handle to stare down at the prince. Akira smiles widely up at him. Sure, he had the same wings but not every child this young would come to the conclusion that he could switch between the two forms. Fairy and bird. 

' _...clever thing._ ' Goro admits internally as he leans his beak closer to the black fuzzed youth as if to say 'Happy now?'. Although he doesn't get the chance as tiny hands reached up and placed themselves on it, making Goro flinch a bit. He expects the child to be a little rough but to even more of his surprise, the infant is gentle. Running his fingers along his beak instead of forcing it to clamp shut and dragging his hand to the mess of feathers on his neck, gently petting them rather than gripping and pulling them like the crow fairy's expectations. Goro could easily pull himself away right now. He should but yet...he sits there, still as a statue. The strange trance is broken however by the sound of horses and three familiar voices. 

They were returning home. 

Goro finally breaks himself free, swiftly shutting the door closed like before and hiding underneath the kitchen table cloth, seeing as he couldn't get through the window right now. (Not fast enough to avoid getting caught that is.) Horses are settled outside before he hears a snap of fingers (likely Yusuke unlocking the already unlocked door) and the trio walks in. 

"You're the one tellin' us to be careful yet you left him alone-", Ryuji starts to say but Ann hits him gently with a baby bottle. "Ow!"

"I know! Be quiet! To be fair though, I was hoping you'd think to stay behind and watch him while I'm gone. But you came running after me." She whines as all their feet come into the kitchen, obscuring their faces out of his view from under the table. 

"Excuse me for worrying about you getting into a crash and hurting yourself." He argues and she just sighs. 

"It doesn't matter now, we just have to be careful not to do things like that again…" She turns to Yusuke. "And be grateful that Yusuke's magic is gentle enough to not cause a ruckus when he slowed the carriage for you two and locked the doors. Regardless however, you'll still need to conceal it like the rest of us, Yusuke." 

"I planned to do that regardless, Ann. Don't worry." Yusuke reassures her and she simply mumbles, "Good."

' _He's the oddest out of you three and yet he's the only one who's done something smart._ ' Goro thinks as he watches Ann walk over to Akira's table, hearing the basket being lifted from it. 

"Sorry, Akira...we really REALLY shouldn't have left you alone like that, especially now." She apologizes, likely referring to the prince's vulnerability, not only because of the danger he was in but being a newborn. While it was still an inexcusable mistake, she seemed to learn from it and recognize it was really bad at least. 

"But we've got you baby food now and you're probably hungry so come on~" she cooed as she brought the basket up the stairs, where Goro assumed the prince's room was, the other two following. The crow fairy puffed in his bird form and hops to the table, using his beak to unlock the window before flying back into the night. 

' _Pest free window next time, Goro._ ' He finds himself having to remember again, honestly caught off guard after such a strange interaction.

Such a strange child, the prince. Little beast, he is. 


	3. Guardian Fairy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact about myself: I’d run into all kinds of stupid crap as a kid. Some stuff that might’ve actually killed me. ALL THE TIME and I’d get right back up after like nothing happened. Akira is gonna end up doing the same along with many other things that may or may not make you want to bite your nails. Speaking of, time to add Akira's pov into the mix (with a dash of the usual Goro)! Hope you enjoy!

All the fairies were starting to feel held up in the cottage it seemed. Time passed and Goro saw that they'd grown into the habit of taking their turns every day. One to watch over the prince, one to run errands, and one who'd lay back; take a break from anything. Everyday for the past five years now (struggling for ritual for the two first years), they’ve followed this cycle. Akira had learned to walk now and had started to speak but the child was still some-what helpless to defend himself. Less you counted the times as a toddler he tried to start little food fights at dinner with his apple mush, which Goro may or may not have had a talon in teaching him to mess with the trio but such an attack wouldn’t do any damage to more dangerous things. It only brought slight amusement to Ryuji (less he was targeted) and disappointment from Ann. Clearly, taking care of the young could be tasking. But as far as anyone could see, they all still liked having the human boy around and couldn't leave him behind. Orders from the king or not. Which is why they decided to go for a stroll with him in the forest for his seventh birthday. 

Goro sees Ann holding what he assumes is food in two baskets, concealed by similarly weaved lids and the folded, checker picnic blanket draped over it in her left arm when she starts to walk out. Paused at the door frame, she looks around before gently leading the little, four feet raven outside with her right hand. Ryuji and Yusuke follow soon after, the blonde boy stretching and breathing in the air. 

"Might've gone out into the air yesterday to get us the food but, man...I haven't gotten to just..enjoy it." Ryuji mumbles and Yusuke simply nods, happily taking in their fresh surroundings. Akira seemed amazed by everything as well, looking from the trees to the ground below in pure fascination, smiling when he so much as tried stepping his foot in the grass for the first time since his residence at the cottage. 

"Akira, come on, stay close." Ann cooes when the boy’s wonder left him a bit behind, pulling the curious child gently along the path. Which Akira hesitantly follows, bit mad at not being able to stop to see the greenery.

' _The beast is curious as ever…_ ' Goro thinks as he watches the prince get dragged deeper into the forest, flapping his wings before taking off to follow them till they reached a patch of grass they deemed worthy to be their spot. Ann lets the boys take the blanket off the basket so they can set it up. In a flash, they get it unfolded and neatly place it on the ground. 

Ryuji sighs and rubs his hands after then exclaims to Ann, "Blanket's ready! So, we eating or not?" 

"We are! We are! But first…" Ann kneels down on the blanket comfortably before she turns to Akira intently.

"Akira, before we settle down and get to eating...it's your birthday so it's fair that we have a birthday present to give you. Usually, we'd wait till we finish eating but this is a special case so I'm giving it to you now..." Ann says with a smile which gets all the boys' attention. Still grinning widely, she sets down one of the weave lid baskets. Out of her grasp, the crow fairy saw that there were some holes cut into the side where her legs had covered before. Unlatching it, she finally gets it open and reaches inside. She fumbles a moment before she pulls out a black ball with several spots of white. 

Once it lifts its head, it's clear what it is. It's a cat. A tuxedo cat, looking to be about eighteen months old, with white paws, snout and chest over the black coat, bright blue eyes to top it off. The two care-giver boys seem to stiffen a bit at the domestic animal but Akira's eyes shine at the sight of it. 

"Happy birthday, Akira~" Ann says sweetly to the prince and hands him the fur ball, which the raven immediately starts petting the cat which catches it off guard before it simply relaxes. The big eyed animal starts to purr especially loud when Akira rubs it's chin. 

"Do I get to name him?" Akira asks happily and Ann nods in affirmation. 

"Anything you want." She says even as Ryuji stares at her in wide eyed shock and Yusuke with deep concern. 

"Anything? Hmm…" Akira hummed as he looked at the cat thoughtfully. "Then his name is...Morgana! Like in the knight stories..." Akira states with a proud grin. 

"Good choice, Akira, really good...Ann, a word?" Ryuji rambles, grabbing onto the girl's shoulder and pulling her away from the boy's ear shot. By the tense look on the raven's face though, he knew...as did Goro. 

' _They're gonna have a bicker again…_ ' Goro thinks as he watches the two start to argue on this while Yusuke stands with them as a mediator. A silent mediator that didn't really give an opinion but to keep them from going too far. The crow fairy didn't even have to mess with them to start a fight, these two just...do it on their own. Mostly by Ryuji. Like now for example. 

"Why a cat?" Ryuji asks, expression infuriated. 

"I thought Akira would like having a pet-" Ann begins but Ryuji cuts her off by shaking his finger at her. 

"Nononononono...why...A CAT?" He asks again, uncharacteristically quiet so Akira couldn't hear him. "You know how those things act around birds...and we're fairies, Ann, and it'll just KNOW." 

"And what? It's gonna rat us out to the crow?" Ann questions him just as quietly, eyebrows furrowed in incredulously at the accusation. 

"No, that's not what I meant! It'll know and rip us to crap!" He reasons and Ann simply shrugs at him. 

"Well, he doesn't seem to have a problem with me. In fact, he's actually really sweet~" she cooed. "He bumped his forehead into my chin so many times when I first picked him up at the place I got him~" Which gets a heavy glare from the blonde boy. 

"Good for you but what about me and Yusuke?!-" Ryuji shouts and it just goes downhill from there. After that, Goro grew bored of the fight and turned to look at the prince. Just in time to see him run into the deeper parts of the forest with his new pet. If he was in fairy form right now, his eyebrows would be raised really high. 

' _Now where does he think he's going?_ ' He thinks as he flies to follow the little adventurer and see where he was going. An easy flight as the kid didn't run very far but it's brought to a halt when he stops in the middle and stares all around him slowly. Must've just then taken in where he landed himself...lost. Especially when he asks his new cat friend for directions which of course leads to nowhere. 

Then when Goro, perched on one of the tree branches again, honestly expects him to start crying, the boy seems to take on this serene calm as he really eyes everything. Fixated to finding every speck of detail as he feels the moss on the trees with his hands and the grass with his feet. Pure amusement just by being in the forest. Which costs him to lose his cat to some stray bird in the woods but even after failing in catching the domesticated animal. Even though he had all the reason to be upset, something still manages to catch his eye once again. His eyes really wide this time. 

Goro wasn't honestly sure what to make of this kid's actions...was it brave or blind for him to be so distracted by nature but he simply shrugs it off and looks to see what caught the child's eyes and his own widen. 

To most outsiders, it would look like a wall of thorns but it was the secret entrance to the fairy marsh...his home. Although admittedly he hasn't visited in awhile, he feels a bit of warmth seeing it. If the raven knew what laid beyond it, he'd probably want to go there too. Of course, only fairies could get through it with their magic. Any attempts some cruel humans have made to burn or slice it never got them any closer as new thorn vines will just grow right back in its place. It's said that one of the first fairies of long ago put all her magic into making this wall with the sole purpose being to protect her kind. If the story is true, she certainly did well as the thorn wall always seemed to know an intruder when there was one. Even the very few human enchanters in the world who mastered some magic themselves couldn't budge it.

Under the thorns, that fact alone, in Goro's opinion, was what made the magical wall breathtakingly intimidating to many. Certainly stopped the beast in his tracks, seemed to be daring enough to get close though.

" _He's gonna prick his fingers before he needs to…_ " he thinks with some amusement. That's when in the corner, he spots a trip wire of sorts. His eyes followed up the rope and attached to it in the bushes, he spotted a man-sized net trap that was ready to strike when the trip wire was hit. And who happened to be heading toward it? Prince Akira.

_'Hmmm...Wonder how the little rogue will handle being caught like a fly in a web...just might be more amusing then seeing him play with thorns~_ ' Goro thinks with a grin eerily similar to the sadistic smile he had at the party. However his mischievous delight drops when he hears what sounded like a whisper on the back of his neck, making the feathers there fluff up and makes him turn to look behind him. Nobody is in sight but several feet away from him are puffs of bright blue. Wisps. Spirits long passed away to roam as specks of life. Creatures Goro should have suspected to run into due to the fact they inhabit dark woods or marshes like this place, whether they were friendly souls or not. These particular wisps didn't seem to hold malicious intent as they've left him alone for this long but upon staring at them...he could feel the judgement of the heavens. 

' _What?_ ' He thinks as he glares at them. Wisps tended to be good at sensing thoughts and emotions so he hoped this would ward them off. They however aren't repelled in the slightest, swiftly flying closer. Once they reached him, one floats softly by where his right ear would be and the whispers become clear words. 

"Help him…" A feminine, somewhat gravelly voice whispers to him. 

' _Why should I?_ ' He thinks with a glare at the wisp that just passed by on his right as another passes by on the left. 

"He'll get stuck…!" A soft, whiney boy's voice whispers as it does. 

' _And why is that my problem?_ ' He thinks as he tries to swat the thing with his wing. 

"Cause you'll feel bad if you don't…" A deep baritone, male voice whispers as one swirls above then under him. Narrowly missing another feathery attack from Goro. He is ready to try another one but after this remark, the wisps thankfully leave the disgruntled crow fairy alone and fly back to the trees behind him. 

'R _eally? I'm the one who cursed the brat to have the longest drowse in history and I’ll feel bad if he gets strangled in a wimpy net?_ ' He thinks as he looks back to the little raven, watching as the child walks unknowingly closer and closer to the trap. 

" _What a joke......_ "

…..

….

...

-

Akira didn’t think this through. All he wanted to do was some extensive exploring of this place. Clearly, Ann wasn't gonna let him go off the path so the two caretaker's bickering was the perfect and possibly his only opportunity but he failed to think of one important detail: How he'd get back after this. 

"...you wouldn't happen to remember where we came from, would you, Morgana?" He asks his tuxedo furred, feline companion in his arms who only responds with a bored yawn. 

Akira sighed as he set the cat down to roam some and stared up at the tall trees, the leaves thick here with bare any sun coming through. The few spots it did peek through though gave it...some illuminating glow to the fresh green grass and bushes. Even the tree's moss was some bright green color, soft and spongy under his pale palm when he reached to touch it. Along the path, his feet had an easy time too as there was a patch of grass for every step he takes, which makes him giggle and wriggle his toes in it once again. Distracted by all this, he barely noticed Morgana chase off after a soft bird's song. Thankfully, he caught it still and immediately panicked at spotting the cat's start of the chase. 

"Wait! Morgana!" He yells as he runs after him but it is all in vain as the cat takes off, too fast for Akira to catch up with. He even trips a bit on the way. The tired boy eventually couldn't keep up however and after catching his breath properly, he groans in pure frustration. Ann was gonna kill him for letting Morgana go loose...though she probably will kill him for running off himself too honestly. 

His thoughts don't stay in that place for long though as he had finally spotted the first sign of color that wasn't green or brown. It was far in the distance but he saw greyish beige vines. Specifically ones that were made of something between stem and wood...covered completely in thorns. They were HUGE and grew at an intimidating mass. Left to right of it, nothing else could be seen, it made a whole wall! A gate of thorns!

"Woah…" Akira mumbled at the mysterious plant and started to make his way to investigate it closer but in the middle of the raven stepping further, there's a flash of black that dove for his feet and he stumbled backwards in fright. Akira barely noticed the snapping noise emitted, wincing slightly when he gently fell back on the ground. Not too harshly that he'd break anything, thankfully. Some pain was unavoidable however. 

"Ow!" Akira whines at the pain but he only gets up, dusting himself off like it was the wind that hit him. He’s ran into worse things anyway, like that one morning Yusuke opened his bedroom door as Akira was making his way down stairs. Poor guy was frozen on the spot and profusely apologizing to the raven immediately when he found out what made the bump noise he heard. He doesn’t remember it much now but Ann tells him that Akira just smiled and kept on going with his day after whimpering and rubbing his sore forehead on the ground. Regardless, Ann did make him wear a cold rag over it to at least soothe it and she told him to tell her if it starts to hurt more later. Clearly, nothing happened after the accident as he’s still standing okay now. 

Once he’s over the pain, he inspects the space around him to see what the snap was and he gasps at the sight that he found right in front of him. A black bird, a crow, caught under a weighted net trap and trying to flap it's wings to free itself. Squawking loudly when Morgana finally came back (which Akira feels relieved about) but only to try to claw at the helpless feather bundle, defensively puffing its feathers at the cat. Unable to actually do anything to ward the big eyed animal due to being restrained. Which Akira found really unfair and mean. 

"Morgana! Leave him alone!" He scolds the tuxedo cat, grabbing him from under his fuzzy pits (getting an outraged yowl from the cat) and setting the feline aside before he gets to work on untangling the trap. The crow continued to issistentally squirm in the rope and struggle even as Akira attempted to free him from the claustrophobia inducing device. 

"Hey, hey, I won't hurt you. I can get you out!" He tries to coax the crow but the bird resisted still, it's tired wings still trying to aid itself out. Any normal bird would've reacted the same. Not like the bird could understand a word coming out of his mouth but it was like it was deliberately slapping Akira's helping hand away. Atleast, that's what it felt like. Regardless, he seeks a way to help him out as he unfolded layers upon layers of the trap. 

Circle clasps are finally found in the mess, connected tightly to each other and keeping the net fastened shut. Likely the cause of the snapping noise when the crow's weight hit it. While held up by his pale hands, Akira lets out a startled gasp when a black beak pecks near his digits, trying to get at the clasps but stunned still as the crow makes a pained screech of some sort and the clasps burn red upon its bite. Was this an enchantment of sorts? Akira has heard plenty of stories about this kind of stuff from both Yusuke and Ryuji. However, materials that are enchanted to hurt and glow like that are only intended to do that to...

"Fairies." He says breathlessly, little wide-eyed at the realization. Not that he didn't think they didn't exist but one time he said he'd like to see a fairy one day during the tales from his two male guardians, hesitant Ann denied his dream for she said that fairies didn't roam far from home often due to them often being hunted for their magic with the very enchanted material found in this net. (Fairy hunting was illegal but that didn't mean people didn't do it.) Unless there is a super special reason for them to leave their home for awhile, they'd never be seen so he never expected to run into any. To his heavy disappointment. 

Not only that but he'd often have dreams of being greeted by one...specifically one who resembled a crow. His thoughts would sometimes even drift to images of the fairy when he was awake. It only made it more odd that it never felt like a dream. It felt like a distant memory. His brain constantly remembering and calling it back over and over since he turned four. He'd always shrug it off as a fever dream that he might've had long ago but...with what's happening now, he was starting to doubt that it was simply something out of his imagination. Maybe this crow…the crow halting it's struggle and looking at him when he mumbled the word 'fairies.', like it knew what that meant, just fed the thought. With that, he pulls and pulls even more at the clasps till they finally come loose and the bird flies out of it to shake it's feathers. It cuts off it’s own celebration short though as it stares at him again, blankly. Akira gives a smile back, holding the open net up.

"See? Got you out." He says but it only rustles its feathers and squawks loudly at him. No 'thank you's, no sign of gratitude, no nothing. So it **was** deliberately trying to stop him from helping him. Morgana tries to hiss in retaliation to the crow's offensive stance but the coal haired boy shushes his feline friend before addressing the black bird again in his friendliness tone. 

"Sorry that you didn't want help but you'd still be stuck if I didn't do something." He reasons, tapping his fingers on the strange material-made clasps to make his point even more clear. The crow only turns his head in defiance, making small chirping noises. Like it was mumbling which made Akira have to hold back a soft snort though he still lets a bit of a snicker through the corner of his grin. 

"Sorry, sorry…" he apologizes with a gentle smile as the crow glares at him for the unintentional giggling at the fairy's expense. "You just...remind me of someone." He finds himself reasoning which is not too far-fetched a justification. What he remembers of the fairy in his head is that he had somewhat of a temper. Not as out of control as Ryuji is sometimes but just as strong. Hidden under the surface like Yusuke's but not locked with the key thrown away...more so the fairy's voice was even toned. Even when he was mad, unlike the booming in the room voice of Ann when she was mad. Unlike all of them, he’d mumble after an outrage. Similar to how the bird was acting just now. 

This reason seems to catch the crow's attention as it turns curiously toward Akira, blinking at him. Akira awkwardly taps his nails in the ground before he dares to ask the bird, "Do...do you...know him?" Any response the crow could've given is cut short by a loud, drastically concerned voice. Ann's voice. 

"Akira…!" 

At the sound of her voice, the crow dashes and flies into the trees, Akira getting up when it did to try and call it back. "Wait, don’t leave…!" 

"Akira! There you are! Didn’t I tell you not to go too far?!" Offended Ann shouts as she comes from the bushes, charging over with outstretched arms to Akira, who doesn't seem to mind her whatsoever and stares up at the trees with sad doe eyes to see no signs of his feathered acquaintance (and possible friend of the past). Seeing that he wasn’t gonna respond to her, Ann kneels down and gently turns him to face her stern expression. "Akira...why did you run off?", she asks him earnestly. 

Akira stares at her stiffly, not quite sure how to tell her why he ran off or summarize what happened after that. "M-Morgana went loose and I...I got lost trying to get him back?" He answered meekly and she didn't buy that weak excuse for a second as she only shakes her head with a disappointed sigh. Dull headed as she could be sometimes, lies never get past her radar so he should’ve known better to not attempt to deceive her. However she surprisingly doesn't scold him for it as she simply ruffles his black curls, a fragile expression on the pale blonde's face. 

"Just...don't do that again, Akira, okay? You could've put yourself in a lot of danger, who knows what you could've run into and...and you scared me." She begs and after a short pause the boy nods (despite being confused to her sudden, strongly voiced plea) which brings great relief to her as she smiles widely at him. 

"Good...now, come on, let's get back to the guys. They're probably scared too about where you've gone." She says as she grabs his hand and leads him out of the dark woods, Akira holding Morgana in his arm and looking behind himself the whole way in a desperate search for the crow. However, his feathery friend doesn't show himself again through the day. Not once. 

-

Later that night, while the trio is asleep, Akira is still awake as he stares out at the window. Curtains open as he listens to the wind howling, trying to hear for any distant cawing. Morgana is trotting down by his feet, rubbing insistently against his legs to get the young lad to go to sleep; it seemed the feline wouldn't rest till Akira was resting. However, Akira still stands there although he was starting to slump some. The raven sighs dejectedly as he only continues to hear nothing during his urgent noise hunt. No sign of the crow anywhere in the sky or trees either. A whiny meow and a soft scratch at his leg comes from Morgana which finally gets his attention away from the window and down to the floor where his pet was literally begging with his eyes. 

"...I know, I should go to sleep…but what if he's still out there? He may not be near but...I still NEED answers." He explains to his companion, who only stares up with annoyed, beady blue eyes. He glares back with a slow huff. 

"...You wanna sleep, I'm not stopping you. But me…I'm going on a bird hunt." he mumbles as he thinks on an escape route out his window so he wouldn't wake his guardians up. Hauling himself out the window, he grabs onto some of the vines coming out of the green growing on the house and situates his toes onto stray cobble-stone as he climbs his way down. Now for an adult, this wouldn't be too difficult as the house wasn't too tall or far to fall but for a small child like Akira to climb this would be…difficult. Didn’t help that he was sometimes accident prone. 

"Ahh…!" He gasps as he nearly loses his footing but manages to catch himself by gripping tighter onto the ropes mother nature provided him long enough to find another stone to rest his stance on. He breathes in and out harshly as he tries to watch where he steps more, heart thumping in his chest as he makes his way down. In this moment, his grip could've slipped easily from his fear alone (and again, he’s a little accident prone) but he somehow manages to keep it strong for someone his age, if he says so himself. From there, he thankfully has a much easier time with his exercise on the house. Wobbling slightly, he grins when he finally reaches the bottom of it and wiggles his toes in the soft plush of the green grass. 

"Good job, for a second, I thought I'd have to save you twice today but you surprised me, little beast…" 

Akira jumps at the male voice and hurriedly turns around, scared out of his pants that he'd been caught already by one of his guardians. The pair of eyes he sees however belong to none of his care takers...shining ruby red under familiar bright brown bangs. Ones he hasn't seen in a long time but he didn’t forget them. He stares with his mouth agape as the fairy's black wings flapped a little, settling to droop downward after the brunette's landing while the fairy shrugged one of his shoulders and stared down at him. 

"So, you asked if I knew the person you were talking about....does this answer your question?" He asks, flat tone intentionally meant to sass him but the boy only smiles and giggles as he nods enthusiastically to the crow fairy. Excited to see him nonetheless. Here he thought he'd never see a fairy when there's been one watching over him like...like...a guardian angel...a guardian fairy!

"Do you know my name?" He asks curiously and points to his chest. 

Tilting his head at him, the fairy answers, "You're Akira...correct?" And after Akira nods with a satisfied smile, the brunette nods as well. 

"Figured...you're called that all the time." He says, arms crossing over his chest. 

"Mhm…" Akira replies in a hum then asks the crow fairy, "What's your name?" 

The question catches him off guard it seems as his red eyes widen some and his body stiffens. Almost like he didn't expect to be asked that. It takes a moment but he gets the name from him as the fairy answers in a mumble. Though Akira didn't hear him clearly so he hummed in question to let the brunette know he needed to speak up. 

"Goro...my name...is Goro." He says more clearly.


	4. Don't. Forget.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me: Hey, brain...you know...Goro in Wonderland hasn't been updated in awhile and-  
> Brain: ONE MORE CHAPTER FOR SLEEPING AKIRA!  
> Me: You keep saying that every time I tell you this! Shouldn't we work on GiW so the fans of it don't think we've abandoned it?  
> Brain: ….ONE MORE CHAPTER FOR SLEEPING AKIRA!  
> Me: ...*sighs*
> 
> For real though, I have fun writing both stories. Just been more inspired to write for this one as of late than GiW. But I'm sure none of you will mind, lots of you have told me you love this story and have given me nothing but positive feedback! Thank you for that, btw, I feel even more motivated to write when you guys leave the sweet comments..plus, I love talking with you guys about each chapter as I post them~! 😊 Anyways, hope you enjoy chapter four!

From that night and onwards, Goro had visited the prince plenty of times as more years passed. Often the raven-haired boy will summon him sometime at night when he didn't seem to feel like sleeping and after he was awakened, it was hard for Goro to fall back asleep so he thought...might as well. He'd just catch up during the day when things were usually quiet. Seldom did he get to visit during the day and it was even rarer for these visits to be extensive as he'd need to leave when the trio interrupted the backyard races Akira would challenge him to compete on those days. Goro had to give them credit honestly because they were getting better at watching over him and making sure he didn't leave their sight. 

Today was a different day however as he heard the routine call for him from the prince somewhere in the midday while he was still resting in the trees. At first he didn't respond, feeling sluggish and limp as he was feeling like part of the real world while simultaneously feeling stuck in the dream world still but the insistent calling of the boy pulled him back from going back to sleep. He stretches out the stiffness in his crow body before he takes off for the house, seeing that the window to the kitchen was already left open for him to dive inside and letting out his usual crow cackle when he dodged the sharp claws of the prince's cat companion. Morgana yowls, still not over his presence being a bird half the time. 

"Sometimes, you can be such a bully, Goro." Goro hears Akira comment while he flies to rest on the chair, his talons gripping onto the chair's back-rest and facing the black-haired boy. Most was still normal about him after turning ten, his black curls were growing out and he was getting newly sewn clothes each time the shirt would get too tight at the shoulders. (Great thanks to Ann's timing and thin, skilled fingers for that) The new, prominent detail that standed out on him however was the glasses framed in black on the boy's face, crowning his coal eyes. A development that happened somewhere last year. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see without them, the kid could still tell the difference between Ryuji’s eight fingers and his two thumbs when tested. The problem, from what the prince taught him was he'd been having, in his words, 'fuzzy, smudgy vision'. It didn’t bring him much trouble outright but he brought up the complaint with his guardians because of the headaches he’d get from the light of the lamps around the house. After the possibility of a growing fever causing the blurry eyesight had been debunked, Yusuke had left for an extended amount of time and came back with the cleverly crafted device (which he likely worked to perfection himself) which had made things better for the prince since then. From what Goro remembers, the king had a pair of his own so he very well could suffer the same issue as Akira. 

" _Quite an unfortunate trait to run in the bloodline…_ " He thinks before he takes in the rest of the prince's state when he’d been addressed by him. The emotion seen resting on his face as he sat on the chair across stunned the fairy a little. He wasn’t miserable or anything but he looked restless and bored on a level that would drive any man mad, his everyday bounciness and glee sucked out of him. Immensely odd indeed. Especially since the boy is still fairly young, he’s meant to be a bundle of energy. However he’s still in his crow form so Goro only tilts his head in question at the boy’s demeanor. Akira pouts a bit before turning to him to explain. 

“I...I tried asking Ann to let me out on my own again.” He starts and Goro is already nodding in understanding. Again, the fairies were doing better at keeping the boy out of danger...however something that the crow fairy began to notice was that the boy developed this constant itch to go out on his own. He promised his feminine, red clad caretaker that day he wouldn’t run off anymore but the lengthy periods of not being able to go anywhere outside the house and it’s yard seemed to drive the raven crazy. Even when one of, two of, or all three of the trio would take him out on the occasional walk, it never seemed to be enough for him. Simply, he wanted to adventure on his own. Independence. Something most kids (as far as Goro knew) never seemed to strive for this early in their growth which Goro honestly found...somewhat commendable. Although…

“Of course, she said no, again…” Akira continued, crossing his arms on the dining table and tapping his nail on the wood of it. “But this time...I threw a fit.” He admits, which Goro thought he’d never hear as the boy was well-mannered and never complained without good reason. 

“I fought with her for a while then she finally said that if I wanted to go on my own, I’ll have to learn how to handle being alone and I said “Okay! How?”. So this morning her, Ryuji, and Yusuke went on this short trip while I stay at home. She said they’d be back by tomorrow’s sunrise but she also said I still can’t go anywhere. She locked the windows I can get through and the front and back door before she left so I can’t even try, not that I would since I’d break my promise to Ann and it’d hurt her so...so I’ve just been sitting here all day.” He finishes with a defeated shrug. Goro nods again at this then peers to the stove curiously before staring back 

“She left food, she said she didn’t think I could make my meals yet so…” Akira reassures Goro as he gets up and pulls out the meals. First, he pulled out a small basket with a crumb infested, partially greased (in shades of pink, red, and purple) cloth and in the cloth was three loaves of bread with an empty spot where three could’ve been. Along with a cob of corn that was completely shaved of it’s kernels. “There was some meat and berries with this too but Ann said to eat them first since they spoil more easily…” Goro nods as Akira then pulls out a bowel that looks just barely enough like a cup that the raven had to hold it with both hands. It was half full with a rich, orange-red liquid but by the rings of it, he could tell it was fuller before. “Tomato soup...she taught me how to use the stove so at least I can heat it up if it goes cold.” He says with a proud smile before reaching for another basket with an aroma that peeked Goro’s interest the most. Inside were three folded stacks of dough baked to a golden brown, decorated raspberry jam, and appeared to be heavily coated in more than one kind of sugar. “Annnnd..crepes. Although she said to leave these last and eat everything else first-” 

The crow fairy wasn’t paying the boy much attention though as he stares, mesmerized by the alluring sweet. Which Akira notices immediately and a wide grin spreads across his face. “They are good, aren’t they?” he asks the crow fairy, enthusiastically. Prompting Goro to jerk violently at his obvious fixation to the sugary goods, staring cautiously back and forth between Akira and the basket. The dark grey eyes widen in pure curiosity at this reaction before asking, “...Have you tried crepes before, Goro?” 

Needless to say, not many fairies got the chance to try sweets and mostly survived off of most natural crops. They survived by making clothes, shelter, and all these things by themselves really. No need to visit the market for fabric, no need to grab tent parts with a building manual, and no special cooking. Despite certain kinds of fairies who differed in opinion, necessity always came before shine for a majority of them so it’s not likely. He imagined it must’ve taken Ann a good amount of the years taking care of Akira to perfect even preparing the corn on the cob, muchless the crepes. But as long as there’s concrete materials to work with to get the result, could fairies make crepes without an oven? Certainly. They could get the materials by growing them and kindle the fire to bake it easily. But for someone like Goro? It’s not possible. He just didn’t have the time or quite frankly, the patience to learn it. He just needs something to fill his stomach at the end of the day. Besides, his fire spells aren’t tame yet. 

In response, Goro shakes his beak side to side which leaves Akira gob-smacked by the revelation. He eyes the treat a moment before he reaches for the forks. Grabbing two, he uses one to hold it down and the other to cut. Once he got a good sized piece, he held it up to Goro’s beak. The crow fairy glares at the piece like it was a stink beetle then back at the prince, perplexed by the sudden offer. The boy’s dark grey eyes roll at this and slides the piece off the fork, setting it on the table by the crow’s chair. An easy reach. “Come on..You want to try it so just try it. Trust me, I wouldn’t eat it myself if it was bad…”, Akira reassures him then sits and waits for him to take a literal peck at it, swatting Morgana away as he was preparing to leap onto the table and snatch it for himself. Slowly, Goro waddles onto the table and stands over it. After a moment of contemplating the piece staining the table cloth, he finally nips it and leans his head back to swallow it. Upon tasting the saccharine flavor of it (that also followed as the aftertaste) and the smooth yet crispy texture, he was filled with an almost cosmic euphoria. Only for it to leave as quickly as it hit him. He barely contained himself as he tried to plunge the basket filled with the wraps, making the child giggle loudly as he grabbed the basket to keep it away from the vicious maw of Goro. 

“Don’t hog’em, I haven’t got to eat one yet! Change to your fairy self and you can have the rest of the one I gave you.” the boy orders although it was light-hearted. Still Goro steps back near where his chair was and with the flap of his wings, he’s enveloped in red smoke and there’s his black-clad self. Chest leaning against the spindles, legs enclosed around the seat, and arms crossed over the top rail. 

“Here I am, now, give it here.” He demands, reaching out and making a nabbing motion with his right hand. Smiling widely, Akira grabs the one missing the corner Goro ate and hands it to him. Grabbing it from him without minding the stickiness from the fruits getting on his fingers, the brunette takes another bite of it and he makes a pleased noise. The raven, who was more acquainted with table manners, grabs a plate to set his crepe on and uses the same forks from before to cut his dessert piece by piece as he eats it. 

“Didn’t you say you’re not allowed to eat this till you finish the other stuff she gave you?” Goro asks, his words muffled comically by the food he was still chewing. He almost sounded like Ryuji talking this way which makes the crow fairy feel a bit embarrassed but it seemed to amuse the child. He doesn’t choose to comment though and answers him, somewhat mischievously.

“You ate it before eating anything else so I’m gonna eat it before I finish anything else.”

Unable to stop it, Goro finds a subconscious smirk cracking at the corner of his lips at the boy’s ridiculous reasoning and pausing his consumption before quizzing the prince, “So, you’re blaming me for being a bad influence?” 

Akira’s eyes gaze to the ceiling, feigning thought for a moment before bobbing his head up and down. Affirmatively answering, “Yes!” 

A pause passes before he only shrugs and replies, “Fair.” Making the boy crack up into a laughing fit and Goro shakes his head at that. 

‘ _The beast is too clever sometimes…_ ’ He thinks as he continues dining on the crepe in his hand, the jam starting to make a small mess of his chin. Akira is still giggling somewhat when he finally brings himself to keep eating his own crepe. Nothing but quiet crunching for a good while till Goro stops in the middle of chomping down his crepe and continues the conversation this time. 

“Back to what you were saying before...I’m sure she has a good reason for it. Not letting you go off on your own, I mean...it can get rather dangerous out there.” He says and it stops Akira just as he was swallowing the last of his dessert and he nods understandingly but solemnly. 

“I know...but she can’t keep me stuck here forever, right?” Akira asks him in a whine which Goro bites his lip on for a moment before nodding. 

“There’ll be a day she’ll let you roam on your own, I’m sure, Akira. Eventually baby birds have to leave the nest.” He reasons and Akira lets out a long whine as he slides his back downwards on his seat. 

“But wheeeeen?” He asks in the middle of his crisis, his shoulders starting to slip off the seat. Goro flicks his ring finger at him and with a woosh, the prince is sitting upright in his seat again. He’s still dejectedly pouting though. 

“Don’t do that, my spine is growing sore just watching you do that…” He starts once he sees he’s got the boy’s attention again. Then continues. “...and to answer your question, it depends on her really...but my best guess is sometime when or after you turn thirteen...It’s not exactly full maturity for humans but it’s when you’ll start to climb there.” he reasons as he grabs the last of his crepe and pops it into his mouth. 

Akira seems to think on his words for a moment before asking him, “When were you allowed to go on your own, Goro?" 

He may or may not have gulped down his treat too loud and too harshly when his body stiffened at the question. Thankfully, the boy doesn't seem to notice it fast enough as he only keeps staring at him patiently. Waiting for an answer from the crow fairy. 

"Ummm...sooner than I should've honestly." He answers, lightly scratching the back of his neck. 

Akira leans a bit closer as he curiously asks, “How soon?” 

Goro motions with his hands (which were a bit pink from the crepe), as if they were the two sides of a scale before finally answering. “About...a few months?” 

This answer only puzzles the kid as his dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he tilts his head at the crow fairy. “Months?” 

“Yes, months...you do know how fairies age, don’t you, Akira?” He asks. On some visits, the raven had fervently shown and read the many books he had about all the mystic creatures of the world with Goro. Which included fairies, of course so he figured he would know about the odd aging system. 

“Yeah but...how old are you exactly, Goro?” Akira asks him and the crow fairy only shrugs. 

“Just a little older than you, actually so....eleven. How old did you think I would be?”, he asks the flabbergasted boy who only waves his arms and hands vigorously, further showing his surprise. 

“I-I don’t know!...decades older than me?!” He shouts in pure astonishment, scaring poor Morgana who was peacefully napping by the windowsill which Goro chuckles somewhat at the wide blue eyes darting around to find the source of the ruckus that woke him. Akira continues to sputter words before he settles on asking Goro, earnestly. 

“H-How do fairies look older than they are?” 

Goro shrugs with his hand as he simply says, “Like your book says, we’re born by magic means. Not human means.” 

“But that’s what I don’t get and the book doesn’t explain it... what’s the difference between magic and human means?” He asks, to which Goro taps his fingers in thought for a moment before he seems resolute on telling him. In his firmest voice, he answers. 

“Feathers.” Akira is quiet even after the fairy’s answer, still staring at Goro in befuddlement. The crow fairy reaches behind him and taps on his wings, showing the prince as he explains. “Fairies come from feathers.” The prince’s blank stare seems to shine with a bit more understanding but it was clear in his eyes that he still had more questions. So he continues to tell him. 

“When a parent fairy wants a child, they pluck a feather from their own wings. I’m not fully sure on how after that but from there, they’ll go through this magic ritual which goes on for days and days...it supposedly requires all the fairy’s concentration because if they mess up, their magic will burn up the feather and they’ll have to start the whole process over again. If successful, the feather grows into a set of wings..then a bird..then-” He makes soft popping motion, clasping his fingers into his palm then fanning them out again as he did. “There’s the fairy child...Even at birth, they’ll look to be the ideal age for most humans to be eloquent at speaking...of course, you already know about how early maturity comes for us because of the book but…hope the extra knowledge helps clear more things up.” He finishes with the wave of his hand. 

Akira’s mouth hangs open, stunned by this but he manages to respond with a nod. Goro nods, expecting that to be the end of it but then the prince asks him another big question. 

“...why isn’t that part in the book, Goro?” 

The crow fairy bites his lips some as he speaks, “...it’s…just not something fairies tend to share with anyone.” Because it would bring danger to the fairies...it would bring danger to their future children...it would bring danger to their wings. 

‘ _So why am I telling him this…?_ ’ He internally asks himself as he watches the child seriously consider the fairy’s answer. 

‘ _...suppose it doesn’t matter anyway...even if he figures out the weight of what I’ve told him, he’ll be dead before he knows what he can do with it._ ’ He reassures himself. 

“Ah…I see...I think.” Akira finally muses with a nod and Goro nods once more. He waits for the boy to say anything more...and surely enough, he speaks again. 

“Wait...you still haven’t told me what makes the human means different from magic means.” He brings up and looks at Goro. 

A long pause...

“......I’ll tell you when you’re older.” 

Akira groans, rubbing his temples in frustration as he sinks in his chair again. “Ann said the same thinnnnng…" There's a pause. "...what if I made myself a beard out the curtains? Would that make me grow up faster?” He grumbles with genuine wonder which makes Goro snort, covering his mouth with his hand to hide the laugh. 

-

It’s late into the day, after several back and forth conversations between them, when Goro hears the boy let out a soft yawn. When he turns to him, he sees that the raven is barely keeping his eyes open and his body is slouching. “Guess you’re falling asleep, huh?” he asks him. 

Akira jumps awake at this. “N-No, I’m still awake! I’m-” As if to call out the obvious lie, another loud yawn rises up from his mouth. Goro raises an eyebrow and nods. 

“Yeah, you should go to sleep.” He simply states and with the single wave of his finger, the boy is lifted up from the ground by red dust. Even as the boy keeps trying to protest, he floats the boy up to his room. Smoothly excluding the fact that Goro had to tell Akira to duck his head at one point up the stairs. Morgana trots after them, likely tired and ready to hit the hay as well. 

“I’m not-! Gah!” Akira yelps as the red dust cloud lightly drops him on his bed. “...tired.” He yawns. 

“Sure, you’re not.” Goro replies sarcastically, snapping his fingers which made the sheets of the prince’s bed toss itself over him. The boy lets out struggling noises as he wrangles with the sheets till his head pops out from under them. He seemed ready to say something but his head seemed to slack once it hit his pillow. 

“...Okay, I’m sleepy…” he admits in defeat as he tucks himself in. Morgana hops onto the bed and curls next him, immediately purring loudly which serves to help the boy relax even more. 

“That’s what I thought....” The crow fairy responds, ready to leave in victory when he spots something shining on the boy’s night stand. A polished wooden box with long, shredded paper coming out from the inside of it to being folded underneath it. Curious, he picks it up and takes a closer look. “What’s this..?”, he finds himself asking Akira. He doesn’t expect an answer, figuring the boy was already too tired to stay awake but he gets one. 

“Oh, it’s a music box! My friend, Haru, gave it to me as a gift on our playdate. Though Morgana knocked it over, broke it open, tore the sheet paper in it and it hasn’t worked since...I’ve been thinking about asking her if it can be fixed but she hasn’t come around in awhile so…” Akira says, his shoulders shrugging from under the sheets. 

‘Ah, right, the one peach haired girl that visited...I knocked her father down face first into the ground. ‘ He remembers. She was one of the many maidens that came to visit over the years, ones that Shido had warned it was important to ward off out of sake for the plan but...admittedly, he nearly cawed his head off when he saw the uppity man rose from the ground, his complexion (and snooty glasses) caked with mud pie, pebbles, and grass. A few twigs got caught in his pampered locks too. A dashing style, fit just for a pig, Goro would say. Both Akira and Ryuji seemed to have trouble holding back from bursting to tears too, earning the brash blonde an elbow to his gut from Ann and Akira getting whispered hushes from Yuske. Though, even he struggled to resist cracking a smile as well. However, Akira did profusely apologize for his snickering when he noticed her father’s freefall splashed onto poor Haru’s dress. She didn’t hold a grudge against him but if the long absence was saying anything, it would be that her father wasn’t as forgiving about the whole ordeal. Amusing as it was, it was a bit of a shame because the music box that was crafted for Akira as a gift really was beautiful. Now, cause of the circumstances, it won’t play again. 

“....” He slowly sits in the rocking chair in the corner of the room as he focuses on the music box, the familiar red glow of his magic surrounding it. The tears in the paper slowly reversed, sewing itself back together as the paper rolled back into the box. He keeps his focus well repairing it and he’s almost proud but unfortunately when he looks at the notes, he notices that it’s pattern was erratic. Senseless jumble. Chunks and parts missing. A troublesome child slamming their palms on the church organ without permission could make better music than this. 

‘ _Cat must’ve swallowed parts of the melody…_ ’ He thinks with an annoyed sigh but then he gets an idea, the magic rolling itself back then rolls back and forth as he tests the notes that appear on the paper before he’s sure about the ones he wants on it. 

“What are you..?” He hears the prince mumble, curious to what the fairy was up to but tired still. The crow fairy only responds with a sharp hush.

“I’m trying to fix it...though the cat ruined the song so it’ll be different from what it was playing before..” He explains in a rush. 

“What song..?” Akira asks in a quiet voice, ruffling a bit in his bed while he was careful not to stir his tuxedo companion awake. 

“...just a tune I know.” He simply answers as he soon finishes it, leaving all the extra paper blank. “...want me to play it?” 

Akira looks blankly to Goro before nodding and curling deeper under the sheets. With that, the soft melody starts to play on the music box after the red dust winds it up. Like the marsh, Goro hadn’t heard this song anywhere outside his head in so long. Despite this though, Goro remembers it down to every verse. He wouldn’t have been able to put it in the box if he didn’t afterall. The music has him spellbound regardless of his strong memory of it though, unable to tire hearing it. He doesn’t even notice his vocal cords to hum to it. He rocks back in the chair, unison with the song till it eventually slowed to an end. After a short silence, he finally looks up to see Akira fast asleep. With a sigh, he gets up and gently sets the music box to the highest place in the room. He’d probably need to come back at some point to help the boy reach it but it would do for now. He wouldn’t want the cat to repeat it’s dirty deed again; not anytime soon at least. He sneaks his way to the bedroom door and with practiced quiet, shuts the door. 

“Goro…!” 

He nearly slips on the wood at the sudden voice that boomed in his ears but relaxes and sighs as he brings his ringed finger up to his mouth, the red gem of it glowing brightly now. “It’s been awhile, Shido…” He speaks softly to it as he makes his way down the stairs. 

“Likewise...but more important matter, Goro...what do you think you're doing…?” he hears the man’s stern voice asks, right to the chase as always. 

He stops his tracks on the steps, glancing up to where the boy’s room is before immediately turning back. Just as he opens his mouth though, Shido cuts his excuse off. “And don’t try to play dumb.” 

Goro sighs at being caught like this before he keeps making his way out of the house while he tries to explain himself. “It’s not like I wanted this to happen, the beast just...latched on.” 

“Mhm…..may I remind you that we have a goal here, Goro...you haven’t forgotten it, right?” There’s a pause before he speaks again, sounding closer this time. “Our revenge?” 

Goro bites his lips as he snaps his fingers to open the front door, walks out, and snaps again to close and lock it shut. “...No, of course not. How could I?” He answers though he feels his body go cold when he notices his response sounded more rushed and automatic than calm and sure of itself. Shido must’ve heard it too because there’s a disappointed huff on the line before he responds again. 

“...No matter, it’s too late to turn back...keep the meetings going. It’d be dumb if you risk leaving and triggering the brat to give you away...but remember why you’re watching over him. Remember his role in our plan. Remember what he is. Don’t. Forget....Is that understood, Goro?” He asks in an almost growl which makes the crow fairy tense up more. 

He steels himself, swallowing before he confirms in the strongest voice he can manage. “...perfectly clear.” 

“Good to hear...that’s all I wanted to say. Keep it up.” And without even a muttered goodbye, Shido’s voice goes silent and the glow in Goro’s ring dims down. He sighs in relief at being from the tense conversation….then he slaps himself. 

‘ _What are you doing, Goro?! Remember what you're doing here!_ ’ He scolds himself angrily...only to turn to look at the cottage once more...then slap himself again and turn away. He inhales deeply, running his hands through his bangs before dropping them back down to his legs. 

“Don’t. Forget.”


	5. (Not) On My Own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to apologize to the Makoto fans in advance for the first portion of this chapter.  
> There’s also admittedly a couple of cut-to’s in this one to move things along (which I kind of hate but I don't want to end up dragging on moments I shouldn't drag on. Plus, this chapter is supposed to be a bit of a short, ‘not quite story heavy’ one anyway so yeah)...hope you’ll all still enjoy this chapter of Akira's early teen rebellion (and stupidity) regardless!

“Oh! Akira, there’s some pretty ones here!” 

It was near fall as the red eyes of Goro's fairy form followed the two berry-picking thirteen year-olds while he reclined on one of the branches in the trees. Though they seemed to be getting off track and going for flowers in the patches instead now. Akira was one of them. Now standing a good few feet taller and his face starting to become more sculpted. He was also wearing a loose, white shirt with a popped collar and bishop sleeves. Over the waist being a black belt, likely to keep his tight black pants on. The whole look finished by his laced up boots. Other than all those changes, he was still the same Akira with the same black framed glasses. (Besides that they were larger to fit better on his face)

Along with him was a short, dark brunette haired girl in a petite dress. Her name was Makoto and she came to the cottage with her older sister. Yet another maiden to accompany the prince and an enemy yet Goro has been having trouble figuring out how to drive her out. None of his usual tricks were working. Pestering her chaperone with tiny disasters to their belongings, tricking the blondes to get into another fit with each other...he's gone as far as riling up the feline so he'd chase Goro across their feet but nothing worked! Not to mention, Akira caught onto his mischief with the cat stunt. He wasn't too mad but after the long, fiery scolding about playing nice and it didn't stop Goro but he cursed a rock for letting Ann be one of Akira's caretakers. He’ll get the girl to crack eventually, he's sure...but it’s still been frustrating trying to get there. 

"Hey, I think this would look good on you!" She chimes deviously, holding a red poppy up to the prince. 

"Oh nononono, I don't think so-" Akira protests as he tries to back away from her but she manages to snug the flower into his curly hair with a giggle while Akira only stands in pure lack of amusement. Which Goro would find some amusement in usually (at Akira's expense)...but he doesn't even crack the smallest grin. He finds that the playful gesture from the girl makes him feel off as well. Something new as of recently and another thing he’s lost all of his patience trying to figure out. Akira rolls his eyes and huffs but still smiles as he rips the flower from his locks. 

"Thanks, Makoto, this is lovely..but give it to me by hand next time." He tells her, simply tossing the flower into his weaved basket which held Morgana and a few small bundles of some other flowers. (Likely presents for the three back at home.) While Makoto was neatly picking out one of each flower, humming in affirmation to the raven's request. Although absent mindedly. 

"...Do you know any flower meanings, Akira? You picked very certain ones for the others back at the cottage." She suddenly asks the prince and Akira shrugs with a nod. 

"Some...an old friend of mine gave me a book about flowers a long time ago. Though it's a short children's book so there is very few pages and flowers to learn about in it." He explains to her with a scrunched up face as he recalls the old gift. She hums and nods in intrigue though she didn't have her eyes on him at all. Rather, she had her eyes on a certain patch of flowers. Peonies. 

"....."

Raising up his ringed finger, the crow fairy waits and waits as she reaches for them. Only when her nimble fingers grab at the stem, his fingers snap. In an instant, the light pink petals turn yellow and the stem of them goes bare to thorned. The thorns prick her pale skin and make her yelp in pain, immediately pulling her hand back from the bush to cradle it. Alarmed by the noise, Akira turns away from the flowers he was observing and runs over to her.

"You okay, Makoto? What happened?" He asks her, looking over her hand that had a thin trail of red going down the tips of her fingers. Makoto only stares, massively confused at the bush that had just transformed between two different types of flowers before her own eyes. 

"I-I-I-It...t-t-t-the…h-h-h-how..." She only continues to sputter, spastically. Akira bites his lip then grabs a cloth from his pocket to wrap around her hand and gives her basket to her uncut hand. 

"Here, let’s go back to the cottage to rinse your hand and Ann will patch you up. Okay?" Akira tells her and after staring blankly at the bush for a bit, she slowly nods and steps toward the cottage while the raven follows behind her. Goro again waits for them to leave, not wishing to be caught or get another lesson from Akira, before he braces himself with his wings and flies down to the ground while he is grinning in amusement. Only for it to drop, feeling a glare of disapproval and looks on his right to find three, familiar blue orbs. Not an appreciated action after he has finally seemed to put a dent in the girl.

“...Oh, come on, it was funny.” He tries to reason but the mood didn’t change. If anything, if he could see their full form, he imagines they’d be shaking their heads. He is silent some time, frowning...then he clicks his tongue, shrugging at them. 

“...I thought it was funny.” He mumbles like a child in a fit but it was clear the words got to him as he snaps to change the flowers. Not to back peonies but he turns them to gardenias this time. Which gets an inquisitive wave of emotion from the wisps as they flew over the bush of elegant white flowers. 

“I just like them better than peonies or roses...don’t think about it too much…” Goro reasons defensively with a glare as he starts stomping away...and stomping faster when he feels high smugness from all three of them. 

"Nosy things..." He mutters to himself. 

-

“Goroooo~” The crow fairy hears the hushed call of the prince as he’s fiddling with a leaf, admittedly restless this morning so he didn’t even nap after finishing Akira’s time with Makoto early and there was nothing he needed to do so even as he sighs, he flies away from his boredom and goes to the boy immediately. He landed behind the raven, who was looking around for him while he seemed to be holding onto something. Goro tries to look over Akira's shoulder and find out what it was but it was concealed neatly in a blue cloth. From what he could tell, it was somewhat oval shaped. Other than that though, he couldn’t make any guesses to what it was. 

“What do you have there?” He asks and Akira jumps with a yelp. The raven recovers however when his eyes meet Goro’s and he smiles joyfully, straightening himself up. 

“There you are! As for this...” Akira fumbles with the cloth as he keeps speaking. “Ann’s been teaching me to cook and bake recently. It was a rough start but Ryuji and Yusuke haven’t spit out any of the food that I made recently so...I thought I’d make you something.” 

Finally, the cloth opens up and Goro finds the memorable golden brown dough of his favorite treat. A crepe. A fairly large size one too. Akira carefully hands it to Goro as the fairy stares in awe at the sugary portion, excited glee on his face. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve tasted a smaller test batch so it should be fine-” Akira assures Goro, seeing as he didn't take a bite when he'd usually down it in an instant.

“I trust your word on that but...why did you decide to make it for me?” He asks. 

The question seems to stun him for a moment. Making a sheepish Akira ramble on while rubbing the back of his head. “No reason in particular...I just wanted to get you something. Gifts don’t have to have a big reason behind them. It’s simply a nice gesture that friends can do, Goro.” 

Goro blinks at this simple explanation, nodding slowly and staring over the dessert like it was the first time he’s seen it all over again. “Oh....” 

Still somehow stunned by the sudden present, he looks up to Akira. “...thank you.” 

“Your welcome~” Akira says with a smile and bright eyes, still waiting for the fairy to take a bite out of it.

_'Well...can't keep him waiting._ ' He thinks. Not to mention, it wouldn’t last if he held onto it for later whether it be due to animals swarming it or the food naturally going bad over time so Goro sits on an old log to bite into the crepe. Once the flavor of it hits, he lets out a loud groan. Pleased to find it was just as good as Ann’s. Even better than hers even but Goro didn’t plan to share that with anyone ever. Akira joins him on the log, grinning proudly. Speaking of...

“Pretty good, huh?” Goro shrugs at this question. 

“Decent enough to enjoy.” Akira huffs at the dismissive feedback. 

“Come on, give me more than that...I made my elbows ache just perfecting crepes.” The raven whines with a frown. Goro stops eating to feign seriousness as he mulls this over and thinks of anything else he could possibly say on it. 

“...it has plenty of my favorite berries and I never even told you one of them. Good job.” He says, giving him a thumbs up and Akira rolls his eyes. 

“Thanks for the compliment.” He says sarcastically although Goro saw that the corner of his mouth was curved upwards despite it. He simply shrugs back at the boy before he keeps eating it. They both lean back some so they could watch the sky while the fairy consumed his food and the prince gets the conversation going by talking about his day. As usual. 

-

“...Makoto might not wanna go back to the forest after that which is unfortunate but it was still fun. Yusuke, Ann, and Sae all liked their flowers too...I still wonder what was up with the bush she was talking about though…” Akira finishes, the sun long since set and the crepe finished before the boy even got through half of his story. Goro was only intently listening at this point, he didn’t even notice the boy turn to face him. 

“Hey, Goro, while we're still talking about this...what do you do most of the day?” He asks him, curiously. 

“Me?” Goro questioned him and Akira confirmed with an affirmative hum. The fairy hummed as well as he thought, starting to list things as he counted them on his fingers. 

  
“Take a nap, gather some food to eat…just the general things anyone does to take care of themselves...then sometimes I’ll take a fly and if you come around, I’ll hang out with you whether it be to talk or…” 

The brunette turns to stare back at Akira fast enough to catch his expression slowly scrunching up in worry. He returns it with his own confused look. "What?" 

“Don’t you do more for fun?” He asks. Goro lets out an offended huff at this. 

“Flying’s plenty fun.” He reasons back but Akira only shakes his head at him as he starts to defend his statement. 

“Not saying it can’t be, Goro, there’s plenty of people that I’m sure would love to be able to fly but...there’s got to be more than that, right? I mean, what did you do when you were younger?” He explains, standing up with his hands on his hips. 

“...Well...I used to sing sometimes...there's that.” Goro remembers stiffly, finding himself caught off guard by the prince’s sudden interest in this matter. Also he had to admit, it’s been awhile since what he was naming was all stuff he did many years ago so he had to think hard to call back on it. Akira crosses one arm’s hand over the elbow of his other while it holds his chin, expression curious to know more. The fairy bites his lip as he thinks of anything else to list for him. “Also...I sometimes played by this river. As you'd expect, I would go swimming when the day was right...sometimes there'd be playful and good natured fights of just splashing each other back and fourth...that's something many of the other fairies love to do, especially the younger ones...not to say that older ones didn't participate. They had just as much fun.” 

“All of that does sound like fun.” Akira comments with a smile. 

Goro, still a bit stiff but starting to feel fond recalling the memories, only nods and mutters. “It was.” 

“...why don’t you do it anymore then?” Akira asks.

“Ah...Most of them, I just haven’t had time to...the singing, I just lost interest in. Nothing more than that.” Goro answers with a shrug.

“Aww, bummer. I was planning to bug you to sing something till you did.” He comments, playfully as he leans down to lightly elbow Goro’s arm and the brunette muffles a chuckle behind the back of his hand. 

“I’m a crow fairy, Akira...that alone should tell you that your ears would be in danger if I sang even a note.” He warns but Akira just clicks his tongue and shakes his head. 

“I’ll believe it when I hear it, Goro.” 

"...Suppose I can't argue with you there." He concedes and Akira beams in victory. At this exact moment, Goro sees the gears suddenly start to turn in the boy’s head and a rather wide grin spreads across Akira’s face. Which immediately sets alarm in the crow fairy as he only sees this kind of smile on the boy before he does something that can potentially hurt himself. For example, the time he had tried to climb to the top of a tree when he was twelve before Ryuji did. Although he had made it up the tree just fine, the boy lost his footing on the tree a couple of times while he was at points where the fairies with him (Ryuji and Yusuke) couldn’t notice and the ever observing Goro had to snap his fingers quickly to get him back on the branch otherwise he would’ve kissed the ground. Of course, it became a written rule that this should never happen again when Ann came back from food shopping and found out what the boys were doing to entertain themselves. 

“You know, I actually saw a river while walking with Makoto....” He starts, a giddy lilt in his tone. 

“You’re still not allowed to go out into the forest on your own.” Goro immediately points out. However, there is no change to the raven’s anarchic face.

“...On. My. Own. Those are the key words~” Akira corrects, still smirking as he starts making his way over to the trees already. 

“Oh boy, he’s getting smart enough to find loop-holes.” Goro mutters quietly, getting up to follow after the hyped teen. "And what do you think what would Ann say about this?" 

This retort however was quick to make Akira consider things for a moment, a guilty face taking the place of his manic excitement. When Akira stopped himself from doing these things, especially when it came to going in the forest on his own, his little promise to Ann when he was younger usually was most at play. It was a consistent alarm that he never ignored. However, it seemed different just now...he forgot it completely which is something out of the ordinary for sure. Akira doesn't seem to fathom on this too much though. He turns to answer Goro with a big, sheepish smile and shrugging his arms. "I don't think she would mind…?" 

Gore's eyes narrow at him and his eyebrows bounce up. Seeing as his excuse wouldn't work, he admits to the fairy, "Alright, that's a lie but..." Akira slowly holds up his pointer finger. "One time won't hurt." 

"If she doesn't find out and you have no shame, sure it won't. However, when it comes to getting soaked in your own clothes late at night, you run great risk of catching a fever- " Goro starts but Akira just keeps pulling him along the path and ignoring his words. Going deep into the trees without any trips in his step. 

"Just one time, Goro. Come on." He pleas with him and the brunette sighs, giving up as he knew with one look he wouldn't convince the determined raven not to do this. 

"...alright." 

-

On this night, the dark river that Akira brought him to reflected bright moonlight streaks. As did some of the stones and surrounding grass. Both boys come up to it, Goro cautiously crouching down while Akira sits down on his knees. Both curiously watching the fast flow of the current, only the fairy dares to dip one finger in. It wasn't freezing but he certainly wasn't gonna take a bath in this water's temperature. It was calming to him regardless though, especially as he starts to swirl patterns into it. The ripples in the water echoing the movements. The boy next to him was also content with gazing down at the glimmering flow for awhile too but he does eventually turn to him, expectantly. 

"Well...What are you waiting for?" Akira asks him. 

"Just...remembering how it usually starts." Goro explains and Akira's brows furrow, confused at this. 

"I would guess it just starts, Goro...I mean, what else do you need but water and your han-"

“ _Oh, that’s right._ ” 

  
**_Splash!_ **

A dash of water hit Akira, soaking his hair and making the bangs stick over his eyes. 

"A reason to start the fight." Goro says, grinning at the raven. Who used his hands to wipe his soaked bangs out of his eyes. He glares at his smug friends for a second before smirking and splashing the fairy back. The brunette dodges out of the way, only the left of his shirt getting soaked. The attack is followed by twice the assaults, one splash catching his pants but the second missing the boy entirely when he takes off a bit into the air. 

"Oh come on, fight fair, Goro!" Akira shouts to him. He only continues to grin as he lands on the other side of the river. 

"Sorry but I'm just working with what advantages I have, Akira. Besides, I've only played this with other fairies before..." He says before splashing his comrade back with the flick of his finger., getting revenge by getting his pants. Akira yelping some at the mass attack that was thrown at him. "Using wings was fair then, much less magic~"

It was only war from there. The boys ran along their sides of the river, constant onslaughts going back and forth between them. Some shots did not quite make it fully across (mostly from Akira's end) while others soaked the edges of the river. (Mostly from Goro's end.) And here Goro thought he wouldn't pick it up again when he tried his little surprise attack and that he would just have to face that he'd outgrown it. Yet Akira was laughing with pure joy and he wasn't laughing himself but the joy was certainly contagious because as they kept fighting, his smile only grew. If he had taken a minute to look at himself, it may have been the widest smile he's had in awhile. Stupid as this idea of Akira's was and despite all the reasons they might regret it later, he’s glad he went along with it. The merriment is cut short though when he catches Akira’s foot slip on the wet patches of grass. The front heel sliding into the water and the boy helplessly tries to balance himself but it’s all in vain as his foot stubs into river mud and starts to fall forward. 

-

  
“Ah-!” Akira closes his eyes and braces for the water, mud, and stone below. Terrified as he loses control of his limbs....he feels none of this though. He's only met with a soft stop to his near fall. He peeks one coal-colored eye open and he feels the great need to open both of them at what he sees. Goro was crouched at the same level as him but he wasn’t facing him. He had his chin on Akira’s shoulder as he was holding up the raven’s torso steadily while Akira’s nose was buried into the fairy’s shoulder, gripping tightly onto the feathers of his wings. Which no doubt hurt and if there were any doubts, the slight hiss of pain heard from the brunette when his fingers tugged it the wrong way proved him otherwise. 

“S-Sorry…” He stutters apologetically; loosening his painful grip on the fragile, black feathers and makes the effort to treat them more gently. 

“It’s fine.” Goro says softly, a hint of discomfort still in his voice but he didn’t sound like he was in pain anymore at least. 

Slowly, he’s lifted back upwards and Goro lets go when Akira’s standing up properly. The boy is still stunned by the rescue though, running his hand over his arm after he was holding onto the fairy for dear life and eyes slightly wide. Staring back at him, the brunette looked a little stupefied by his fast reflexes as well. He just kept staring at the stream while he brushed his feathers back down with his fingers while his wing had folded to wrap close to his chest. Akira felt his cheeks burn a little out of embarrassment of the situation but he still smiled although awkwardly. 

“T-Thanks.” He says, his words still failing to come out clearly. 

“Y-Yeah.” Goro doesn’t seem to know how to react as well as he simply nods back at him and mutters this. The fairy then carefully walks out of the river and motions him to follow. “Come on...I think we should start heading back.” 

Pulling his boots out of the muddy ground of the water, he winces at the muck on the bottom of them and wipes his heels on the ground to get it off before following his friend back out of the woods. As for the water, Goro only took one look at soaked half-way up to the knees Akira before he dried his clothes with the snap of his finger and in a gust of red dust. He smiles and thanks him as the fairy then takes care of his own clothes while they keep walking. 

"Are you happy now?" Goro asks him and Akira nods with a cheeky grin. The fairy looked like he was having as much fun as him and truly that's all the raven wanted out of this endeavor. 

  
"...good." The brunette only says as they pass through the trees, a wide view far in the distance on Akira's left. A view that he remembers well, as Yusuke sat with him on the cliff there several times before so the tall man could take out some paper to draw the scene while Akira sat and gazed upon it. There was a trail that could be seen through all the trees that went up and up, leading to a stone castle that reflected pale yellow at sunrise and pink at sunset. It was no wonder that Yusuke went there so much. 

"Though I don't think we'll be doing something like this again anytime soon…if we lost track of time, you'd be in trouble." He hears Goro say and Akira turns his head from the view to him. 

"That's fair…" He starts with a slowly growing smile as he asks him, hopefully. "...but once I'm actually able to come out here whenever I want, then can we do this again?"

The fairy considers this long and hard, more intensely than Akira’s used to seeing from him. It leaves poor Akira in tense suspension but he’s saved when the brunette finally glances over at him. "Well...if you want." Goro tells him, a tone almost anxious which he has to hold back from chuckling at.

"Of course I want to, I wouldn’t ask otherwise.” He reassures him. 

“That’s...That’s true, I suppose.” Goro mutters, reassuring himself with a nod and the corner of his mouth turns up. “Alright...It’s a plan then.” 

“It’s a plan.” Akira parrots happily, smiling widely himself. 

  
-

  
“Ugh…”

  
In the morning, Akira woke up with a groggy feeling in his head and a stuffy nose. It didn’t seem too bad at first but when he tried to stand, the grogginess only got worse and his body swayed greatly. Unable to handle it, he falls back on his bed with a groan. As Goro predicted it would happen, he got sick. At the edge of the bed, he sees Morgana glare at him judgingly. Almost as if he not only knew he was gone too long before bed but he also knew what he’d been up to last night. He simply glares back as he grumbles with a croak in his voice. “I’m sure that I look stupid to you right now, Morgana but I still don’t regret going in cold water at night to have fun with a friend so you can stop staring at me like that.” 

...though being able to get things for himself on his own was **obviously** gonna be difficult for awhile. 

“...Ann!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the link I used for the meanings behind the flowers in this chapter if your curious: https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/flowers/flowers.html
> 
> I will put down the meaning behind the flowers (the way I intended them to mean) here still though:  
> (General/Red) Poppy: Eternal sleep...sometimes I worry about how evil I can be. (Red says pleasure on the sight but on other sights, it’s associated with death so...this is the only exception I made where I didn't directly follow the site)  
> Peonies: Romance and happy marriage or in Makoto’s case, the hopes of it  
> (Yellow) Roses: Jealousy if you couldn’t already tell by the way Goro was acting when he formed them  
> Gardenia: I’m actually gonna let you guys read for this one but I’ll say the feelings are not quite there yet exactly...but it’s developing~


	6. For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First chapter where the time skip is only a few months and it ironically ends up being the longest one so far. 😂  
> Also this is purely an Akira chapter! And in this chapter: he's given two very special privileges for his long belated birthday. Not to mention, he's finding out new things about his 'guardian fairy' while he's simultaneously being smitten with him...hope you all enjoy!
> 
> P.S. Thank you all for 100 kudos~! 😊💖💕

When he wakes up this fall morning, Akira, laying on his side, blinks awake with a yawn and stretches to grab his glasses by the bridge of them. He doesn't put them on immediately as he'd have to take them off for the bath later anyway. It wasn't like he couldn't make it there without them so for now he tucks them in the shirt pocket of his pajamas. He rolls onto his back but halts and leans forward again when he feels something under his back. Turning his head to look over his shoulder though, he sighs to find only a black ball of fur curled up there. 

"Morning, Morgana…" He greets as the tuxedo cat's head lifts up to yawn too. Not that he minded Morgana laying near him (or on him sometimes though he didn't always want his ribs crushed) but Akira worried with how much the cat cuddled up to him and sometimes stole space on the bed that his own body might just end up rolling off in his sleep one night due to resting too heavily on the mattress corner. 

After getting up to bathe and then slipping into his usual clothes, he greeted his close ones with 'good morning' as he walked down the stairs. Yawning lazily and stretching out his arms to get out the rest of the tough knots in them. However, he heard no response or clinking of plates meant to serve breakfast. Still somewhat sleep dazed, his eyes narrow to find that none of his caretakers were around. No Ann. Or Ryuji. Nor Yusuke. Besides Morgana still creeping along the floorboards with him, there was nobody else to fill the house with noise...and Akira wasn't expecting to be all alone in his home at all today. His eyes widen as he scratches his head. 

"...Now, where did they go?" He wonders aloud, stepping into the living room. Finding no clues till he looks to the table by the large window in the kitchen. On top of the wooden surface, he finds a sloppily folded red fabric in silver ribbon and a note tied tightly to it. Intrigued, he takes the cloth pile and sits at the dining room table with it. Morgana follows him by his feet, hopping on the open seat next to him, and propping his white front paws on the table. Akira tries to tug on the ribbon at first and just rip it off the thing however it was stubborn and didn't even tear the smallest bit. He tisked, getting up again to get the scissors. Once he got them and sat down again, he snags the blade under the knot of it and gets it loose with a swift snip. Ready to be unwrapped but he doesn't unfold any of the layers. At least not before taking the note to read it over. Seeing as the letters written were sloppy and closed in on eachother, he could tell that it was Ryuji's handwriting. Neither Ann or Yusuke wrote this way. Yusuke's handwriting was simple but neat while Ann wrote in thin and pristine cursive. 

' _Akira, I'm sure you do but remember when we said your presents were coming late?_ '

That Akira does remember. He remembers the guilt-ridden expressions on all three of their faces when on his thirteenth birthday, they didn't have their presents with them and had to explain that the absence was due to the weather being too harsh for the delivery wagons to pass through. He did assure them it was okay though. It couldn't be helped after all so they didn't need to blame themselves. 

' _Well, mine came this mornin'! But Ann's and Yusuke's did not. I believe the merchants said something about other important deliveries needing to be made recently but we were sick of making you wait so we're going to just get them ourselves. Other than that, I have other news for you and I'm sure you'll love to hear this-_ '

The next sentence, Akira has to do a double take just to confirm he's reading the page right and he finds that sure enough: It is what he thinks he's reading. 

' _I convinced Ann to give you time to be outside on your own! But you know her, she still worries about you so she set some ground rules for you. "Don't go too far from the cottage, don't talk to strangers, and make sure to come back before nightfall. No exceptions." That's all she asked. I know you probably want more than that but I'm sure she'll be more willing to let you go out more often if you follow them so do your best to keep your word. We're trusting you, brother! Anyway, to celebrate, I’ve got you a present for the cold. You'll need it if you plan to keep yourself warm, trust me. Tell Ann if it doesn't fit you though. She'll work with Yusuke to re-tailor it for you. Oh! And I know we’ve already said this before but..happy birthday, Akira! Hope you like your gift and we'll see you when we get back!_ '

And it signs off with Ryuji's signature on the bottom. Akira could feel the light in his own eyes and the excited thump in his chest as he worked to untangle the folded fabric. By the feel of it, the material was soft wool. He stands up with it as he undoes the folds and lets the fabric drop to the floor. It was a cloak. A cloak with a silver clasp meant to secure it together at the neck of the hood. Decorated from hood to cape with a thin trim. Black made up most of the trim while inside and framing it was silver etched into swirl patterns. 

"Whoa…" He cooed in awe at the article before he flips it over his shoulders, fastening the clasp tight. He gives his whole body a whirl to get used to the long cape on him and make sure it fit. Thankfully, it felt natural on his back and the length of the cape was perfect. 

"...I've got to remember to thank Ryuji for this one." He comments with a soft laugh, feeling pure glee from wearing his new cloak and the purpose behind it. Morgana only stares up at Akira, tilting his head. The raven beams down at his feline companion. 

"Looks like I'm taking my first trip in independence, Morgana." He tells him with a huge grin. He doesn't expect him to react much to the news. Morgana is a cat after all. However, the tuxedo furred fiend seemed genuinely worried for a moment and flattened his ears. 

"...are you gonna miss me? You know, I'll only be gone for-" 

Morgana yowls at him. 

"....be gone for a few hours and I'm sure it won't be that bad for you to be on your own too. You're independent most of the time anyway, Morgana."

The cat doesn't seem convinced by the boy’s reasoning though. 

"...would you feel better about it if I gave you tuna before I go?" 

Small triangle ears and the cat's head perk up at this, the thin pupils of his blue eyes dilating while his nose twitched. 

"Okay, I'll get the tuna out."

-

After the beast was satiated and he helped his own appetite with a small breakfast, he stepped out into the chilly breeze. It wasn't too strong today but it blew very gently on his cape and made it flare out at the bottom. It was a perfect day for a walk, if any during the fall. He smiles, his feet crunching up dead leaves as he heads down the all familiar path and throwing the hood over his head. Wherever he went, there were many shades of autumn colors. Red, brown, orange, and yellow. The forest feeling, in Yusuke's words, almost like it was sleeping. Serene, quiet, and calm. It would be a fast fix if Akira made a leaf pile though. However, he came only to enjoy a long walk outside and that was the plan he was sticking with. 

Akira decides to stop by the castle view during the stroll. After the escapade with Goro, he hadn't had the chance to go with Yusuke lately due to being really sick so it sounded good right now. There is nothing too out of the ordinary with the view when he finds it besides the trees below also being warm colors and the castle being more shaded than usual because of the heavily clouded sky that was out today. Down at the trail in the second forest though he finds a rather peculiar sight. There's several people heading toward the castle. Groups of four each carrying and pushing vegetable carts down the dirt paths but no produce was on them whatsoever. 

‘ _Maybe all of this is what was holding things up…_ ’ Akira thinks with a hard squint and adjusts his glasses with his pointers and thumbs as he tries to determine what was on the carts but it proves to be difficult as large rags have been draped over them. Effectively keeping the goods out of sight to onlookers. One clue he gathers is that none of them are wide from the front but they are when seen from the side. Another one was that it was large and circular at one end while the other end was short and pointed. He hums in thought, trying to think of what this could be but he comes up empty of guesses. Deciding to just let it go and not let it take his whole day, he shrugs and leaves the cliff to keep his stroll going. He wanders on through the thicket, cautiously stepping across the stones of the stream when it comes up, aweing at the flower bushes and stopping to see all the familiar spots that he visits. 

Good memory and listing big marks comes in handy with exploring these woods without a map, Ryuji had told him and it seemed to be doing the raven great so far along his trip. Though he stops when a soft noise catches his attention. It sounded like singing. Akira curiously followed the noise and started peeking behind some trees as he searched. However, the mysterious voice kept fading in and out of earshot for him and just when he thinks he found it's direction, it starts to go quiet. Making him have to back step and try again. 

"What on earth…" He mutters, growing frustrated by this...then his eyes widen as he realizes that things didn't look as familiar here as it did before. "Oh no…" 

His mistake was further mocked by the sound of childish giggling. From over his head, behind, infront, left, and right. Just as disembodied as the voice he was following before. His eyebrows furrow angrily at this. Though he couldn't see them, he knew who had fooled him. 

"Pixies…" He mutters before he turns around, hearing the laughter persist. He's fairly certain that he can manage to figure out how to get back but he'd need something to make sure this doesn't happen again. Pixies can be very malicious when it comes to causing trouble for others and were very tricky to spot clearly. (Probable reason why they are not afraid to be in the open. Unlike most of their more human-like cousins, fairies.)

If there's no points that stood out to work with down the road, he figured it would help to make his own. That idea in mind, he starts to dig through some rocks sticking out of the ground and tests them out on some tree bark to see if they scratch it. Huffing when the stone was too dull to leave marks before trying to use another. After several failed tries, he finds the right one which leaves a decently deep swipe across the wood. A satisfied grin on his face, he finds one tree that was further to what appeared to be the entrance of the area he was in and draws a set of wings on it with the rock. 

"That ought to do it…" He states as he palms the rock and looks around, debating where to go now that his trail had been thrown off track. Expression turning surprised when an answer immediately showed up just some feet away from him…tall, endless from side to side, and dull colored. 

' _The thorn wall…_ ' Akira observes as he holds onto his hood, pockets his new tool, and rushes over. He hadn't visited this far since he was five but he remembered going down one straight path towards it so if he circled around the thing, he'd surely come across it. If he finds and retraces where Ann dragged him back that day, he'd get right back to the cottage. So he begins to walk along it and waits for the path to show itself. Akira stops one moment to stare up, just to see how tall the thing actually reached but it only makes him woozy as (though he was certain it didn't) the wall's grand height made it look like it was touching the sky. Truly endless. 

' _...I met Goro on that day too, didn't I?_ ' He recalls fondly, remembering how the only thing that kept him from coming up to this wall before was the crow fairy who dived straight at his feet to keep him from a trap, only to get caught himself. 

"Back in the woods so soon?" Speaking of the devil. 

Akira turns behind himself to see Goro standing there with his hands behind his back, watching him with narrowed although curious eyes while he dragged his wings behind him. In his usual attire, although he made his small cape drape down a little lower and provide him a soft collar of feathers. (Of course, by using magic) A change that he's made to keep himself warm from the cold seasons before. 

"And I don't believe I've seen you in that before either…" The brunette comments, ruby eyes eyeing the red cloak down and up. Feeling somewhat bashful at his friend sizing him up, Akira clears his throat before answering. 

"Well umm...would you believe that Ann gave me permission to be out here finally?" He asks, smiling sheepishly at the fairy as he scritches his chin. Goro's brows bounce up, surprised. 

"...It definitely is new to hear." The fairy answers in a hum. Akira softly laughs.

"Yeah...it honestly surprised me too. I mean, Ann did give me rules to follow...I can't go too far...come back before it gets dark-” He listed on his fingers and finishes with a shrug. “...all that stuff but it's better than staying cooped like before." 

"Mhm...still doesn't explain the new wings-" Goro teases him with a grin as he holds up the red wool to Akira between his pinching thumb and pointer. "And if you're not supposed to go too far, how come you're all the way here?" 

Akira huffs, gently shooing the fairy's hand away before answering. "I don't think I'm too far yet but if you must know...pixies made me lose my way because I'm gullible." He says (which gets a snicker from the brunette) as he starts circling the thorn wall again, Goro following him without question. "And Ryuji was actually the one who convinced Ann to let me out here and he gave me this as a belated birthday gift so I can stay warm." 

The crow fairy hummed with a nod, glancing to the wall. "Nice of him...but it's also absolutely shocking to know that those two are capable of compromising…" A comment from the fairy that makes Akira laugh some.

"It goes to show that they've been trying to be better about it though, we've got to give them that at least…" A reasoning that Goro gives an agreeing nod to. 

"...another thing, what are we playing round and round this for?" The crow fairy asks as he points to the wall, careful of the sharp points. 

"I remember there being a clear path going straight from here to a clearing...if I am right, I believe it should help me get to more familiar territory at least." He explains. 

"You’re lucky that you came across it if that’s the case." Goro says, still staring up at the wall. 

"Well, I mean, it's kinda hard to miss, don't you think?" Akira replies, glancing up for a moment. "I can't even figure out how high it is...much less what's behind it."

The crow fairy stares at the wall for a considerably long time before he responds by absent-mindedly nodding. The raven raises an inquisitive eyebrow at this. Thinking on it, couldn't the fairy go high enough to see what's behind it..? "Hey, Goro, have you ever looked over this wall?" He asks the brunette, who is stunned by the question but fairly swift to answer him. 

"I've been on the other side of the wall."

"And...what's there?" Akira asks, staring at the wall again while waiting for his friend's answer. 

".....the marsh." 

The raven almost trips over his own feet but he manages to ground himself, balanced again as he turns around to stare at his comrade with wander-struck eyes. "W-wait, you mean the fairy marsh?" He asks with a stutter, pointing to the wall. 

"The sanctuary of fairies and the most mystical, solitude creatures." Goro says with an amused smile, waving his arm across it in a presenting manner but it shifts to a confused expression. "Though...I honestly expected that you'd know, Akira. You have a library at home about this stuff."

Akira blushes, scratching the back of his neck at this. True, he had a big collection of books on magical creatures and more. Yet none of them told him where the marsh was so he kinda guessed it'd be in a cave, behind a water-fall, or down some fox tunnel. Nothing like the thorn wall so this was a big surprise. "Yeah...I don't think any of the books that I have covered this part for me...why a thorn wall though?" He asks him curiously, staring up at the wall. 

"Most of us believe that one of the first fairies put all her magic into it to protect the marsh from intruders. Mainly being any humans." Goro says and Akira feels alarmed at the statement. Unable to help but assume the worst from it. 

"Did something happen or…?" He begins to ask worriedly but Goro shakes his head right away with negation. 

"Not before it was made, no...though many bad humans have tried to get in by hacking down the thorns...but it always grows back. It seems to know whether or not a sorcerer is human as well...so none can get in." Goro explains and Akira is left with even more astonishment at the enchanted wall. Above all though he wished he'd be able to see the marsh it protected so vehemently but if it was for their safety, he didn’t want to intrude...

"...a fairy like me could get in though." Goro insinuates out of nowhere and his coal eyes widen even more, almost breaking his neck when he snaps his head back to the fairy. The brunette despite his suggestion however seemed uncharacteristically anxious at the idea. 

"I-Is that really ok…?" Akira asks him, a bit worried he was forcing the crow fairy to break rules by letting him in. 

"I'm certain it is if I bring you in as a guest but…" Goro trails off, rubbing his arms and biting his lip. There's still that nervous look. Even his wings are curling back up because of the fairy’s mood. 

"But what?" Akira prompts him, wondering and wanting to know what was getting his friend so stiff before they do anything at all. Silence stretches on for a while before the fairy finally answers him. 

"I...I haven't been around for a long time. Last time I was here, I kinda got in a fight with everyone and...left without letting anyone know." Goro admits, quietly as he looks away from the raven. Akira blinks, surprised by this. There's some rather mischievous and cruel types of creatures out there but he still couldn't imagine them all fighting with each other one bit. What happened between Goro and everyone at the marsh to fight with them and leave without even leaving any notice? However, the intensity in his friend’s expression makes him feel like it was something Goro should bring up on his own. Still, he didn't seem afraid of those in the marsh but rather Akira felt that he was just worried about what they would say after all the time he was away... 

"...I'm not gonna ask what happened but...do you consider them as friends?" He asks him. 

"...I was close with some of them, that much I can say." Goro answers firmly as he stares at the wall still but now with strong thoughtfulness in his eyes.

"Well...if they feel the same way at all, I'm certain they'll just be happy to have you back and try to work it out with you." Akira offers to try to ease him. After many years, he's definitely had a fair share of arguments with the others at home. Mostly with Ann over stupid things when she was trying her best. Sometimes, he'd lock himself in his room for the rest of the day because he was so mad but he was always greeted kindly when he came back out and he did the same. Whether it was him or them that had to apologize. Surely, it couldn’t be any different here. When Goro doesn't respond to this...

"...but I don't want to force you to do anything, Goro. If you don't wanna see them, you don't have to-" Akira starts to assure, tone understanding as he crosses his arms.

"No, it's fine." Goro interrupts him, holding a hand up. "I'm...I'm fine with going in. We can visit them...besides…" 

The crow fairy taps on the thorn wall, the branches briskly glowing red under his touch and fading away just as fast. The wall starts to wind and whirl into an oval shape. Progressively getting larger and larger till it was as tall as both of them. Then it swings open to a path free of prickly thorns and allowing enough space for them to walk through. "...I’d like to say I have a fairly resolute personality. I can handle anything unexpected that might be thrown at us." Goro finishes. 

"...as long as you're sure, Goro." Akira tells him with a small smile. The brunette nods. 

"I am...let's head in." Goro orders as he walks in the door and Akira quickly follows behind him, not wanting to get left behind. Good choice as the door swings shut behind them immediately upon their entry. Leaving both of the boys in pure black. Only till he hears fingers snap and a small red flame is in Goro's palm as the fairy starts to lead the way through the dark tunnel. 

"Shouldn't take too long so bear with this for now..." Goro tells him as they walk. To anyone else, this shade of light would give off an eerie aura to anything lit under it. When Akira looks up at Goro though, there is a captivating glow illuminating along his chestnut brown hair, pale cream colored skin, and gem-like eyes. His dark clothes only work to attract more attention to his facial features in the dim light. The fairy suddenly turns to stare back at him, the small flame reflecting in his gaze. He averts his eyes away from him instantly, embarrassed by his unconscious staring. 

' _Ahh…! I was staring at him too long! He didn't notice did he? I know it's rude to stare at people so why didn't I look away?..._ ' He ponders nervously in his head as he did his best to keep his eyes off him from there on. Thankfully, his friend didn't notice or he didn't choose to comment. Akira hopes it's the former and that the light was hiding away the warm burn he felt growing on his cheeks from his companion. As his friend promised, they soon reach the end of the path where there's only another wall standing. Blocked by thorns still. Akira sees Goro brace himself and rub his hands together before tapping on it. Same effect as before happens, giving them an open entrance to go through...and they did. 

The astonishing spectacle that greeted both of them was no doubt something worth being emulated through the craftsmanship of Yusuke's art. Trees of all kinds and colors grew almost everywhere, tall and standing strong against the gentle fall breeze. Though what made them different from most trees was that they each glowed with small lights. Switching between multiple bright colors as they faded in and out. The patterns in the bark also had a shimmering light to them, almost as if the trees themselves were breathing. They were not the only sources of color though as Akira could make out moving shapes all around, likely being the magical residents that lived in it. And Akira thought that no other patches of grass could beat the ones at his home but the terrain here easily takes the crown with just one observing look, shining even under the cloudy skies and growing some flowers even though it was fall. Moss even sprouted out with it's full potential on top of several rock piles or cliffs. The centerpiece that made it all come together was a long stream of water leading up to a waterfall. 

The pleasing sight seeing is disturbed abruptly however by a sharp swish noise and a sword tip pointed at their faces, making his eyes widen in terror at it and he feels his heart start to race immediately. Goro though has no reaction to the violent attack surprisingly, he barely even moves an inch. "Hello, Souji." He calmly greets the aggressor. To his surprise, the blade is slowly pulled back. Only then does Akira dare to look up at the assailant and his eyes stay wide at what he sees. A tall, soldier, male forest golem wielded the thin sword that had nearly nicked their noses. His body was made of stone while the armor he wore to protect himself was made with large leaves. His face structure was sharp as his weapon, chiseled without any mistakes symmetry-wise and several small patches of moss grew on it. His stone hair was sculpted into bangs that almost went over and concealed his glowing white eyes. Similar light beams in the palms of his hands and on the unshielded part of his chest. The golem who was addressed as Souji blinks in surprise, setting aside his weapon after hearing Goro speak. He narrows his eyes at the crow fairy after though, giving an interrogating glare. 

"...I know it's been awhile but...I'm back...I'm...I’m sorry I didn't say anything at least." Goro apologized as he rubs his arm and struggles to maintain eye contact with the golem. Souji stares with that blank stare for some time...then gives the crow fairy a mellow pat on the head and grunting with approval. Goro appears shocked by this, glancing over to Akira with confusion. He only smiled at the scene before him and gave his friend an encouraging thumbs up. Souji's attention turns to Akira after this welcoming interaction, expression neutral as he looks down at the raven. Although somewhat nervous under his piercing eyes, he gives a friendly wave to the golem. 

"That's Akira, I brought him along with me...don't worry about him, he won't be a bother or hurt anybody. I promise." Goro assures the stone man which helps as Akira is also given an approving head pat from him, making the boy chuckle as his hair gets ruffled some under the gentle giant's hand. 

"So...how are things around here? Is everybody holding up okay?" Goro asks him and Souji simply nods in response as his glowing eyes look behind himself to the moving figures going about everywhere. 

"That's nice to hear...and how about you progressing with Yosuke?" Goro asks him, the tone that he uses for teasing making its way in. The golem goes still...then loudly sighs and gives the most dejected expression that Akira has ever seen on anybody. He's stunned when he hears a laugh from the crow fairy at the dramatics of the golem. An unmuffled laughter that is rarely heard from his friend and if at all, it was often when the fairy was in an impish or teasing mood. 

"Still complicated, huh?" The brunette asks him and Souji slowly nods, still staring at the ground like a kicked puppy. "...you'll get to him one day, Souji. I'm certain." He adds, his voice unexpectedly gracious when consoling the golem. Something Akira has **never** heard from Goro ever, further stupefying the raven. Not that Goro was unkind but...he's never been **this** gentle when talking. This is the moment where Goro seems to remember Akira was there as the ruby orbs widened when they met his coal ones.

"Wish I could talk more but Akira can only be out till it gets dark...promise I'll try to come back later though, Souji." Goro explains to the golem politely, who nods respectfully but he seems to remember something. Something he really needed to tell the fairy. His eyes meet Akira for one second before motioning Goro to lean in for him, whispering his words into Goro's ear. There was a small bit of elation in his friend’s face from the chat before but whatever the golem says makes it disappear...and replaces it with an almost blank expression excluding the corners of his mouth going down-turned as he leans away from the golem. 

"...T-Thanks, Souji. I appreciate it. Till we meet again." He hears Goro whisper his farewell and he runs to Akira, ushering him to keep walking without another word. The raven's eyebrows furrow deeply at the bizarrely abrupt actions. 

"What did he say?" He asks the crow fairy, snapping his friend out of whatever kind of adrenaline he was given. 

"He just welcomed me back, nothing too big." Goro replies, although in a notably dismissive manner. Akira considers prying more about his behavior but ultimately decides against it. The worry-stricken fairy was probably overwhelmed enough coming back to this place after years, he wouldn't want to make it worse by pestering him with too many questions. Short quietness passes then the brunette nudges him with his shoulder to get his attention again and tilts his head toward the miscellaneous figures from before.

"How bout' we test some of your knowledge while we're here?" He suggests and Akira's eyes brighten hearing the fairy's challenge.   
  
"Start pointing away, Goro." He declares, grinning confidently as they kept walking. The crow fairy smirks at his enthusiasm before pointing to a small, red-scaled creature that was swiping berries from a bush to eat. It had no arms though so it had to rely on using it's jaws. The wings on it’s back helped the creature reach the higher ones at least. 

"A little tricky but...Wyvern: commonly known as the dragon without arms." Akira names with a smile and Goro hummed an 'mhm.' in affirmation. Walking further down, he then points to a group of pale green skinned people in white robes and vines in their hair, either relaxing by the river or under the trees. They waved at the boys as they passed by before getting back to their tranquility time 

"Hmmm...Nymphs: sprites who tend to the forest, water, and etcetera." He guessed and Goro nodded, squinting his eyes before pointing to another group of creatures. This time made of simple glowing blue orbs, flying from place to place. 

"Easy. Willow O' Wisps: Light ghosts often found at night. Mostly in places like bogs or swamps." He recites and Goro confirms he's right once again. As they're gazing up, he sees three of them stop in their tracks and fly over by them. Curiously floating around the two boys which almost makes Akira dizzy when his eyes try to follow them. 

"Hello again, didn't expect to come across you three here…" Goro greets as one seems to playfully nudge at the fairy's head but stops when they're shooed away by his ringed hand. Akira perks up in interest at this. 

"You know these guys too?" He asks. 

"Yes but I haven't met any of them till recently outside of the marsh. They’re overall docile...though they do tend to bug me whenever they're around." Goro complains just before one of them pulls at a strand of his brown locks. The fairy gives an irritated swat (missing the wisp by one finger nail) and a quietly muttered 'quit it.' in response. Akira chuckles at the antics. He then notices that something is fluttering by his arm so he turns away to inspect what it was. One of the wisps was poking at his wrist, seemingly trying to urge it upwards. 

The raven inquisitively raises his arm up, startling the poor wisp away. Akira makes no move, waiting for bravery to return to the wisp again before it floats back cautiously. He stays still, slowly opening his fist and keeping his arm straight. The blue light comes up to his palm and he feels a shy tap on it...a high five. Akira laughs softly at this, tilting his hand sideways for another one. More self-assured, the wisp goes in with a much stronger one. When he smiles gleefully at the wisp, he feels an equally ecstatic aura from it. "Well, they seem to be big fans of me." He teases Goro, cheekily. 

However the fairy isn't mad at all nor does he give any jab back this time. Instead, he gives a small smile back, turning away again as he replies. "Can't say I blame them." 

Such little words yet the boy’s head swarms and he's blushing up the neck and over his cheeks again at them, making him rubbing his neck out of habit. Unsure what to say back. The wisp that gave him the high five even nudges him, like he was worried if he was okay. Whether it was to be considered curse or blessing later, he's grateful now when they both hear the surprised voice of a woman calling out to them. "Goro, is that you?"

Realizing that someone else wanted to talk to them, the wisps head back to the swarm of other wisps. Both boys turn to see who it is behind them. There was a nymph woman, pale green skinned and dressed in a white dress. Similar to the rest of her comrades. Although her clothing was decorated with several flowers and even some underwater plants. Her short, dark, wavy hair was also decorated with all kinds of floral. She stares down at them with just as dark colored eyes, her line of sight especially on Goro. "What a surprise...I thought you'd never return…" She comments, tone somehow simultaneously suspicious and glad at the same time.

"Surprised to see you kicking too, Kawakami." Goro replies back, his stance more relaxed this time compared to when he faced Souji. She rolls her eyes at him, glaring tiredly at him now. 

"You say that like I'm centuries older than I am...It's not like I'm going anywhere anytime soon...but you, who mind you was a barely sprouted sapling when you left, very well could've gotten hurt or worse." 

' _Only a sapling?_ ' Akira notes, glancing over at his friend for answers. Goro keeps himself directed toward Kawakami though. 

"I seemed to survive well on my own though, didn't I?" He asked her which she only glared harder at him for it. Akira wasn't sure whether to laugh or not at how familiar a lecture this was, being given to the one who endorsed him to follow the same lecture when Akira wouldn't listen to anyone else nonetheless. 

"...regardless, I...I should've let you know I needed to leave at least...sorry." Goro apologized once again. Kawakami seemed to be tougher to give an apology to than the golem was though. She seemed to be skimming through his words over and over, constantly second guessing on what he deserved back. Sending the fairy and him into nervous jitters. Akira was about to say something to try to help him out of this tense atmosphere but just as he opens his mouth-

"Come on, Kami~! You heard the boy! Lay off him now, will ya?!" A boisterous woman's voice suddenly shouts, scaring both him and Goro as they were jumpy after being left in suspense for so long due to the nymph before them. Kawakami isn't scared but she sure wasn't expecting the voice either, turning in the direction of the voice. Akira looks as well but he couldn't see anyone there. 

"O-Ohya?! Where did you-?!" Kawakami doesn't have time to finish her baffled question when she's attacked by a womanly figure that popped out from a completely different place than where they heard it. The woman in question was a pixie. She wore a huge, long sleeved on the left while it was bare shoulder on the right dress made of bright colored leaves and rags. Also decorated with plants here and there as well as gemstones. Her skin was porcelain for the most part, all except the red flush to her face. Her black hair was in a bob hairstyle just a smidge shorter than Kawakami's hair with long pointy elven ears sticking out from underneath. A hastily crafted gemstone necklace that matched her dark red lip makeup crowned her neck while a bracelet copy wrapped firmly around the wrist on her bare arm. 

"He's her' now. He's fiiiine. It's what we hoped fur, right?" She slurs, waving her arms about as she talks. She pauses when she spots the raven then smiles. 

"Oh, sorry! I don't think we've met, I'm Ohya!" She chirps, taking his hand and shaking it without warning. The unanticipated handshake is not the most bothersome thing here though.

"Gah!" Akira impulsively gags when he's hit with a rather foul smell upon the pixie coming in close proximity to his face. He covers his mouth and nose with his hand to keep himself from straight out heaving. "...not to be rude, miss..but what is that smell?" 

Goro is visibly appalled by the stench as well but appears to be used to it enough to handle it as he answers. "Ale, ever heard of it?" 

"Yeah but can't say I've ever been around it…" Akira replies as the pixie only giggles and hiccups as she finally pulls herself away. Too plastered to even care about their comments. 

"Hope you don't plan on touching another bottle in a while...we'll need you to be sober eventually." Kawakami scolds the pixie then turns to Akira with a curious look. "Though she's got a point...I haven't even asked about your friend here. Human by the looks of it…what's his name?" 

"...Akira. His name is Akira." Goro introduces him and Akira faces the two ladies, giving them a friendly hello. For a moment, he swears he could see both their eyes widen before Ohya goes right back to grinning (although mouthing a short 'oooo') and Kawakami goes right back to her neutral expression. 

"Well, you know her already but if you haven't figured it out already…" The nymph grabs his hand in both of hers and shakes it with a small, courteous smile. "My name's Kawakami. Pleasure to meet you, Akira." 

"You too, Kawakami." He replies, smiling back. She let's go of the greeting before turning to Goro again. 

"And what brought Akira with you here today?" She asks him as she takes a seat on a rock. Akira follows suit when he finds his own. 

"Well...he's a big fan when it comes to reading and learning about us and I happened to run into him before I came in so...I thought I'd bring him here with me." Goro (who was still standing) explains to her, motioning to Akira and shrugging. 

"Is that so~? That's nice of you~" Ohya coos, still smiling widely as she leans over a stack of rocks to listen in on and keep herself part of the conversation. The crow fairy rolls his eyes at her, crossing his arms with a huff. 

"Come on, it's not that big of a deal, Ohya. We just have to peck one finger on the gate and it'll open. It's easy and you know it." Goro groans but she only hops up with joy. 

"Easy and not much of a big deal, maybe~ But sososo thoughtful of you and quite honestly, Goro, never in a million years would I expect you to make any close friends on your own-" Goro glares at her and mutters an offended ‘hey’. 

"But here you are, proving me wrong~ I haven't seen you in so long but I can tell even though you’ve been handling everything on your own, you're growing up~" She pauses one moment as she starts sniffling...leading to one soft wail and harsh intakes of breath between each of her words. "You're growing up…" 

The pixie weeps theatrically for an uncomfortable half-minute, worried expressions on both him and Kawakami. She however picks herself back up again just as quickly, casually speaking once more. "Anyway, Akira, glad you find us so interesting but make sure to get other interests and hobbies too! Even if you love what you're doing, over-indulging in one thing can be pretty taxing on anyone! You know~?" 

"...I'll remember that, Ohya. Thank you." He answers stiffly while neither Goro nor Kawakami were too caught off guard by her words once she’s chipper again. If Goro’s used to the smell, Akira guessed they were likely used to sudden mood changes from her too while she’s in this state. 

“Speaking of being on your own, Goro...I’m glad you’ve managed to survive out there without help but...do you ever plan to come back and live in the marsh again?” She asks him, curiously. An innocent question but Goro seems to tense somewhat at it. Though Kawakami’s making a conscious effort not to rattle him further, Akira could tell by how she was speaking. “I don’t expect you to but...it's safer here than anywhere for you. Not to mention...we’d be happy to have you back.” 

Akira watches attentively as Goro stands there, contemplating his answer as he’s getting his words out. “...I can say that I’ll visit but...we’ll have to wait and see if I’ll come back.” 

Kawakami purses her lips a bit but she's respectful of the decision that he's made for now. “That’s fine...but remember that the offer is always open along with visiting, okay?” She reminds him and he nods. 

“Oh! And on your next visit do feel free to bring Akira here with you again!” Ohya chimes in, cheerfully. The enthusiastic invitation catches the raven off-guard, making him scratch the back of his neck. 

“Well, as long as I’m allowed to come by...I wouldn’t want to bother you if you all were busy or-” Akira starts but the pixie cuts him off, shaking her head at him and waving him off. 

“Oh, nonsense! I've just met you and you're absolutely lovely company~ I mean, you would have to be if you got along with the little bird here~" She snorts a laugh at this but her expression immediately turns serious. "Regardless of his difficult ways though...if you're Goro’s friend then you're everybody’s friend here.” She says. Goro through this exchange seemed to grow more and more abashed by her words, his face almost pure red by the last statement. Akira awed at the woman’s words tauntingly, hands over his heart as he gazed up at the fairy and giggled when he received an annoyed glare back in return. 

“Besides, although we’ve got everybody else here, it’s been a tinsey-tiny-itty-bitty bit lonely here~ I mean, Goro here left the marsh not too long after-!”

“ **Ohya!** ” The harsh, thunderous shout from Kawakami sent a cold shock through Akira, effectively killing the previously light-hearted atmosphere. It caught the ears of several of the occupants of the marsh too, perturbed eyes turned to the nymph before they slowly went about their business once more. Even the intoxicated pixie went into a state of shock at her friend’s outburst, eyes wide and jawed dropped. Kawakami gasps and her own eyes widen, probably realizing how out of nowhere her behavior was..only to give a small smile. 

“My goodness, you’re going to fall over any second!” She scolds lightly, as she grabs onto the pixie’s arms. “You should lay down somewhere.” 

“Huh? But I feel fine.” Ohya complains with a scowl as the nymph starts to drag her away. 

“Do you see yourself right now? You almost tripped over your skirt eight times already! Now, come on! Let’s get you home before you pass out on us!” She encourages as she pushes Ohya forward, calling to the boys over her shoulder before she disappears over a hill. “Sorry to end this so soon but I’ve got to make sure she makes it to her bed and doesn’t drop in the river! See you next time, you two!” 

And with that, she’s gone. Completely flabbergasted, Akira’s eyes remain wide open as his jaw drops and closes. Trying to form words despite his voice being numbed from his scare just minutes ago. He turns to the crow fairy, pointing to the direction the two women left with a shaky laugh. “W-What’s up with-huh?”

The raven's inquiry is brought to a halt when he sees Goro. His black wings had curled around himself in what looked like a self-hug but he didn't look soothed by it at all...in fact, he looked mortified. His skin was just a little paler and his red eyes stared down at the ground, like he was counting the pebbles. Akira immediately gets up, worried sick walking in front of him. “Goro?” He questions him, getting the fairy to snap out of it and look up. 

"You okay?" Akira asks him, eyebrows furrowed and frowning. Goro takes one moment to process what he's saying before nodding as his wings settle back down and color comes back to his face. He sighs in relief seeing the fairy relax again and glances back at the hill. "Seriously though, what was that about? We were all just talking and it just came out of-" 

"Akira?" Akira immediately stops his ramble at the croaky voiced interruption from Goro. 

"Yeah?" He questions.

"Sorry to cut things short too but...can we head back to the forest?" Goro asks, voice more firmer but extremely tired sounding. Guilt hits Akira like a brick and his frown deepens. 

"Sure, it’s okay." Akira reassures him still and they head back in the direction they came in. However, the raven is restless the whole time, the nauseous turning in his gut only getting worse as he watches his friend sluggishly drag himself across the ground in front of him. He runs a hand through his hair, tugging at it slightly. 

"I dragged and forced you out here, didn't I?" He blurts out without thinking and Goro starts to slow down, letting out a long sigh. Akira winces and stops, expecting the worse but-

"No, Akira-" The crow fairy groans, turning to face him again. His expression is irritated yet...patient with Akira. "You..it's not your fault, okay? I did all of this completely under my own will, I promise. Things just got tense for reasons out of anybody's control...it was a bit much for being my first time back but this is not gonna keep me in a corner. I'm gonna keep coming back here...besides I didn't just do this for me...I did this for you too...so stop sulking."

The heavy weight on Akira's chest is lifted up in a single swoop at the last part of the fairy's ranting. He stares at the fairy blankly and Goro's red eyes squint when the raven stays unresponsive. "What?" 

"You did it for me?" Akira parrots back at him. 

Goro gawks wordlessly as if in disbelief that he had said such a thing then he stops, closes his eyes, and he takes a breath. "...Yes. Yes, I did...admittedly...I probably would have never set foot in the marsh again if you hadn't encouraged me to which despite today, I don't regret at all. Not to mention...I haven't done anything good for your birthday ever, I-I felt kinda bad, and you so clearly wanted to see the marsh-" 

Akira grins ear to ear and Goro stops immediately when he notices his borderline smugness, going right back to his signature glare. "...you're too easy to cheer up, aren't you?" He simply asks and Akira chuckles at his retort. 

"Nah, I think it's just you that brings my mood back up this fast." Akira commends, earning suspicious squinting from the brunette. The boy does nothing but smile back. 

"If that is true…" Goro's sentence trails off as he hesitantly concedes, clearly seeing that Akira wasn't wavering on his claim. "I'm...I'm glad...even if it's at my expense sometimes." 

"Well, thank you for your noble sacrifices." Akira laughs and the fairy is shaking his head at him but with the corner of his mouth curved up. 

"And thanks for caring enough to do this for me but don’t push yourself, okay?." Akira adds, softly smiling at him. Ruby eyes gleam brighter at that before narrowing back down, the same flustered expression from Ohya's heartfelt invitation. 

"No trouble at all and I’ll keep it in mind…" Goro takes a deep breath before suggesting, "Well, you're back to your normal self and all's good so shall we keep going?"

Akira nods eagerly but pauses as his eyes trail up the path that they still needed to go up. Even though it didn't feel long when he was brooding, there's still a fairly far distance to go. 

"This is going to take awhile…" Goro hummed in agreement with him. Akira turns and grins widely at him. 

"Wanna race?" The brunette raises an eyebrow at him. 

"Aren't we getting too old for that game, Akira?" He asks him. The raven thinks about it. 

"I suppose it is a bit past us considering we've turned thirteen and fourteen recently." Goro hums in agreement the second time as they walk along the path again.

"Also, we'd probably startle Souji if we came barreling past him." The fairy reasons with him. 

"Oh yeah, totally!" Akira agrees with him, enthusiastically nodding. "We wouldn't want to do that to the poor guy, especially doing something so stupid." 

"Exactly, it's completely immature..." 

"Right, completely childish…!"

"....." The buckling of Goro's boots clink and thump with each step as he struts. 

"....." The soles of Akira's made the faintest, shortest, skidding noise as he strides. 

Both of them bolted in a flash of red and black for the thorn gate, Akira laughing hysterically as he almost gets a head start before an equally competitive Goro catches up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Kawakami and Ohya are their last names but I'm more used to calling them Kawakami and Ohya so yeah. (Same with most of the adults in the game, excluding Sojiro and Wakaba from what I can recall at the moment) Do tell me if it bothers you guys though, I'll change it.


	7. At Wing's Length

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I've been unspooling the thread on it so to speak through the chapters...some of you probably have a good idea of what's going on already...maybe did a poor job at being subtle...but the wait is over as I think it's high time we (and Akira) uncover why Goro acts the way he does. Shall we?
> 
> (Also I only missed it by a few days but happy belated birthday to Goro! ❤)

"Hey, Goro, why don't you sit normally?"

The voice of fifteen year old Akira asks the fairy while he's cleaning dishes and the brunette cleans his hands with a fabric napkin after the meal that he had been offered for the visit. While his own voice hadn't changed much from it's soft spoken ways, Akira's had long since become more gruff while still holding the pleasant tone the boy had just before his voice started cracking. How embarrassing that time was for the human teen and himself refraining from teasing him through it wasn't to be reminisced at this moment though. He raises an eyebrow from the chair he was sitting in and he looks down at his usual position while folding the used cloth. Elbows crossed over the top rail, legs straddling the stiles, and his back to the kitchen wall. 

"I always sit like this." Goro reminds him, facetiously rather than seriously. Akira turns to him, drying up his pruned hands with an unused towel and shaking his head side to side in disapproval. The crow fairy chuckles some at the less than unamused expression. Even the cat, who was watching him warily from the floor, visibly recoiled at his joke. 

"No, I mean sitting in it the way that it's meant to be sat in." Akira clarifies still despite him knowing full-well that Goro understood what he meant. 

"Hmmm...It's just not comfortable for me…" He answers simply with a shrug, guessing the boy would probably figure it out himself. He's assumed correctly as Akira's disappointment morphed to thoughtfulness, his dark grey eyes scanning over the brunette's shoulder at his feathered wings. 

"Oh yeah...now that I think about it...you probably can't sit that way without crushing your wings. Even if you spread them out that would obviously put some uncomfortable amount of pressure on them." Akira muses as he tucks his rag up where it hanged before. 

"Obvious, yet it takes ten years for you to notice that?" Goro teases. The poor boy progressively looked more and more like he wanted to join the hiding fest of skittish wild rabbits inside a bush each second that passed them in the kitchen. Hushed but wheezing laughter from Goro grew along with it as the fairy was clutching his stomach. 

"Let's not discuss this further." Akira begs the cackling fairy under his breath as he reaches for the dirty napkin on the table and walks back away from him. 

"O-Ok...N-Not another word." Goro promises through harsh breaths. Actually needing to force himself to stop laughing and wipe one tear away. Since he's started making trips to the marsh with Akira, he's begun to laugh like this sometimes...which was a change he still wasn't quite sure how to feel about yet but that didn't keep it from happening at all. Much to his dismay when a certain nymph and pixie caught him doing so, they never stopped grinning ear to ear for the rest of the day after it happened. 

"...at least it made you laugh." He hears Akira mumble and sigh to himself as he tosses the rag aside in a dirty basket for it to be washed up by Ann later. It all still was playful jabs in the end and he knew that the boy was equally as unoffended as him when he's the jester...yet he still feels bad about his comment. Perhaps he was just over analyzing it but Akira had his back turned to him so he couldn't tell if he was smiling or frowning right now...

"...Well, I'll be taking my leave. It's late so the trio will probably come home pretty soon now and I'd rather be the one to kick myself out." He hurriedly informs him with a half-hearted laugh. Without thinking as he gets up from his chair, surprising Akira out of talking to himself and making him turn to face him finally. 

"Oh okay...see you around, Goro! Stay safe!" The boy tells him. Giving the fairy his friendly, everyday smile and waves him farewell as he's making his way to the stairs before turning away again when his foot reaches the first step. He was still beaming brightly, like any other day and wasn't bothered at all. 

' _...Of course, he wouldn't be bothered. Why were you so worried he would be?_ ' Goro scolds himself as he returns the goodbye wave before walking out the door, turning to his crow form, and flying back to the woods. ' _...why are you caring so much lately?_ '

-

The brunette is still antsy after leaving the cottage and hitting the hay for the day. Leaving him with another one of his restless nights where there doesn't seem to be any floating sheep to count and he's squinting his strained ruby eyes at everything around him. He groans as his consciousness awakes again just as he was drifting off for the thirtieth time, maybe even more. Didn't help either when he tried the grass bed instead of a tree branch and neither in his crow or his fairy body could his head ease. Goro sits up from the patch, dusting off the pesky green strands that came loose and stuck onto his clothes and wings. Freezing the moment his eyes catch onto the large red gem on his finger. 

"...the old man hasn't spoken for awhile." He murmurs tiredly to himself while flexing the digits in his ring hand. Shido threw a huge fit later on Goro's first day back to the marsh (which he kinda expected) though he felt insistent that day as he protested that it wouldn't change any of their plans and nobody said or spilled about anything before anyway. To his luck, Shido caved that time and said he could go back but only as long as he went with Akira and things stayed quiet from the others over there. Shido always called without hesitation when he thought Goro was doing something wrong, all the time...but the crow fairy hasn't heard a word from him for the past week or two. 

' _Maybe...I've just been doing good?_ ' He considers for a moment but shakes his head at the notion right away. If he stepped anywhere near the thorn gate (whether he meant to or not) and there's no unknowing prince in tow, he'd immediately get chastised by him. He remembers doing just the same today so he should've been scolded...and yet there was nothing…..hold on-

' _He can't always be watching me, magic takes too much energy to constantly use day in and day out._ ' Goro remembers with a heavy sigh, disappointed at himself for not thinking about that till today...karma must've been less forgiving than Akira earlier and this was the punishment that she deemed to be appropriate. Regardless, he felt a bit of relief figuring out that he was clear of Shido's harsh eyes for now. It frankly uneased him somewhat to think he was always being watched when Akira was supposed to be the focal point in all this. However, that didn't mean he was free of him forever. He'd likely come back at any moment from what he was doing during his break so Goro couldn't risk being reckless at all...not that Shido had to worry about him going out of his way to do so really but still. 

"....Well, he never complained about me trying to fly at night at least." Goro whispers, pulling himself up to brace his feet on the ground. He found the late exercise usually helped to tire his body out. Whether it was healthy or not, he knew it worked and that's all that mattered. So he rolls his shoulders free of their stiffness before spreading out his black wings and taking flight into the full moon sky above him. Pretty much fading into the darkness. 

The air is cool and crisp tonight, without any strong winds to throw the fairy off balance. All is silent except for the croaking of several cacadas. He catches the river and the castle far away mirroring the bright white moon, soothing to the fairy's eyes. The airborne voyage tonight was relaxing him in every way but only until he soon sees bright orange light buried within the trees and he hears rioting yells. All at the same distance. Swiftly he swoops down to the scene and ends up at the marsh entrance, hiding himself in the trees to avoid being spotted when he takes in the hostile display in front of himself.

Torches were up to give ember light to the dark area and soldiers of the king with weapons at their sides everywhere. The equally suited horses neigh softly as the men seemed to be unloading something from the carriage that no doubt was used for transport. Axes are what they came out with and they each grabbed one with a firm grip, some soldiers already equipped and using them to chop at the barbish plant. Grunting and once in a while making a small war cry. It didn't take genius to figure out why they were here. 

' _They're trying to get to me…_ ' The crow fairy thinks as he watches them cut away at it, only for it to again grow more and more of them like it has been doing for centuries. Might as well nickname it 'The Wilderness Hydra' at this point rather than the thorn wall with how rapidly it was growing itself back up in the onslaught. Nevertheless, hearing the racket must've been annoying to everyone inside and for that Goro couldn't help but feel some guilt at their possibly disrupted napping. ' _How long have they been in here, anyway?_ '

"Sir, it's no use! No matter what we do, we can't break it down-!" Ah, hours it seems. The tired soldier's reasonable complaint is cut off though by another who the brunette guessed had to be leading this bunch, as his cape and armor was much more elaborate in design than the others. 

"You're not trying hard enough then! Chop faster and don't give whatever kind of hellspawn this thing is a chance to catch up with you!" He commands harshly and the soldier cries miserably though he gets back to dismantling the wall as ordered. The crow fairy can only shake his head at the poor sods, knowing they'd be sweating till dawn and ache greatly when they gave themselves a chance to rest. If they were going to be allowed any rest at all. 

_Creeaakk...!_

Absolute horror shoots through Goro's spine when he notices that the branch he sat on was far too brittle and was starting to break under his weight **way too loudly** for his liking. In his panic, he jumped to hide somewhere else but it was already too late. One of the soldiers turns their helmet and gasps when he catches a glimpse of him leaping to the next tree. The fairy hopes with every tiny assembled speck that made up his body that the soldier will dismiss it but..."There he is!!!" The man shouts, pointing in his direction. 

' _Damn it…!!!_ ' The brunette curses as he starts to make a fly for it. A mob of the soldiers forms in seconds as they grab the torches from their stands and charge for him with angry shouts. There's no time for Goro to even listen to what they shouted at him, he was relying on pure fear to help him get away. His only saving grace at the moment was that the mob decided to stay on foot while the few who stayed behind were watching over their much faster ride. It can only help him so much though when they start to pull out their bows and arrows from their holsters. 

The leader shouts for them to aim and all hell breaks loose. Goro gasps as he narrowly avoids one soaring, tapered point but doesn't take chances with staying in the moonlight where he could be seen easily any longer than he needed. He dives to go deeper into the forest, dodging all the arrows he can and doesn't look back. Coming up closer to the trees, the number of arrows becomes less and less. He feels like he's going to make it…!

"Ggnhh…!!!" He hisses as he feels a one sharp pierce into his body, where he wasn't certain but it bloomed with more pain as he forces his wings to make a dive for the ground. He makes several grunts of agony as he lands, his body getting tossed across the dirt and grass before stilling him on his side. He squeezes his eyes tight, repressing himself from flat out wailing. He continues to get stung by the wounds as he listens to the group stomp nearby for ten long minutes. The soldier sounding puzzled as they called back and forth with each other, pure silence following inconclusiveness.

"...I can't believe this! **I cannot believe this! You lost him!? You morons! How are you all even part of this guild?! Your nothing but spineless pieces of-!** " He hears the captain growl at them after the long pause, his words drifting further and further away. Thankfully, it seems that they have given up just as fast as they started the huge raging stampede. The fairy takes a shaky sigh of relief at their absence. He attempts to push himself up but cries out and falls back down when he's shot with unbearable burning in his back. Repeating the action, only to grimace, and fall down once more. His head starts swimming from all his failed attempts, almost like it was swaying side to side. His body eventually gives out on him and collapses. He tries to keep his eyes open at the very least but they slowly close shut against his will and his vision goes dark…

-

" _-just stay right here and don’t go anywhere, okay sweetie? Wouldn't want you to somehow end up getting hurt or lost, would we?_ " Goro can't focus on the figure in front of him in the current dreamlike landscape but…he notices the person leaning down to face him with only one soft smile visible to him, their voice close and in a purring hum. 

" _We'll be done before you know it...be patient and wait till then, okay~?_ " When the blurred shape starts to get up again, he tries to tell the person to come back and explain themselves but after he feels something warm ruffle the top of his head, he sees them leave and the bright colors fade to dark again…

-

"Agh…mnnn..." Goro sees that it is dusk when he manages to get his eyes open again. Somehow he had landed by a cliff that had a perfect view of the castle. He groans as he prepares for pain and he turns away from it. His body still felt sore from last night but the stinging had become more tolerable and he didn't have to grit his teeth anymore. His head was still disoriented but he swears he could hear the whispers of those nettlesome wisps but they didn't bring cause for alarm. What was alarming however was a cold, wet feeling being pressed onto his left wing. 

The brunette jolts up with terror, not caring that he nearly swats one of the wisps when he pulls his wings away from their assaulter. He's shaking so much but he's thankful that he managed to keep himself at wing’s length. His blood is boiling and he's about ready to hit whoever is near him with all he has when he feels a gentle weight on his shoulder. He hears a stuttering but familiar male proclaim as Goro is trying to struggle away from the touch. "Gh-Goro! Hey, it's just me! Akira!"

When he stops and stares over his shoulder, the worried dark grey eyes of his friend are there and gentle as ever but he still yanks himself away when he sees a red stained cloth in his friend’s pale hands. The boy only stares massively confused at the pull and searches for an answer from the fairy, the wisps floating over by him. Still driven by his defensiveness, anxiety-riddled Goro glares and points an accusatory finger at the teen. "Wha-What were you doing with my wings, Akira? Tell me, right now!" He questions him, not necessarily loud but there was a bark to his voice.

Akira's eyes widen at his aggressive stance but he still gently waves away the wisps when they try to get in between the two and addresses the brunette as calmly as he can. "I was cleaning up your wounds, Goro...and some of them were on your wings." He answered sternly. 

Goro blinks out of his outrage at that answer, narrowing his eyes as he scans them over the multiple coverts on both sides of his feathered pair. Sure enough, the skin underneath them had been grazed by the arrows and left a few deep scratches. (Left unnoticed likely due to his previous state of adrenaline.) There was an especially nasty gash at the top of the left one (The shot that likely took him down.), it looked like it had been buried into. Not too much blood stained any of the lacerations though...so Akira had really cleaned them. Not to mention, he spots one of those very arrows by the raven's feet; scarlet at the tip. His best guess was the boy probably had to shut his eyes tight and pluck it out by hand. 

"You didn't break anything, thankfully...but they were still hurt pretty badly and I didn't want them to get infected so I started cleaning them up...I-I would've patched them up too but..I don't have any bandages or anything with me…" Akira adds, fumbling nervously with the stained rag in his hands.

"That's-That's fine...I can do that part myself. I just...hit the ground pretty hard so I passed out before I got the chance..." Goro mumbles as he holds the left wing in his hands and red dust starts sewing the wounds shut. The boy sighs in deep relief immediately after he tells him this.

"That's good to hear…what happened to you, by the way?" Akira asks him, daring to get closer to the fairy when he sees that Goro has calmed down significantly. The brunette doesn't look away from his healing work and doesn’t make any demands for the raven to move away this time. 

"...I got hunted last night, nothing new. I managed to get away but like you said, I still got scuffed up it seems." He doesn't say anything more, biting his lip before asking the raven. "...how did you manage to find me? Did I land near the cottage?" 

Akira shakes his head. "Oh no...you were actually pretty far out here...Takemi saw you land though and she came with Iwai and Mishima to get me over here just as I was getting up for berry picking. I had to drag you just a little to reach the river so I wouldn’t be cleaning them with just a dry cloth though." He explains and Goro's ruby eyes squint in befuddlement at the new names that came out of his mouth. 

"Wait, wh-who?" The crow fairy questions and the boy grins as he points to the wisps. His jaw drops a bit more as he stares at the wisps before turning back to Akira. "They've never told me their names, since when have they told you? And how can you even tell who's who? They all are the same." 

"When you're not around, they'll sometimes pay me a visit at the cottage. Mostly Mishima shows up though." Figures. 

"As for how I know who's who, the one who's more of a baby blue is Mishima, the more smokey grey blue one is Iwai, and Takemi is the sapphire blue one." The raven tells him, pointing to each one as he names them and Goro had to admit, they do all look fairly different only when observed very closely. Despite their usual antics with him though, they went out of their way to make sure that he was okay by bringing the teen here. He turns to the group of glowing orbs, making sure his spine is straight before he speaks. 

"Well, I believe I owe you thanks then. Akira would’ve never found me without you so...thank you, you three." He bows his head to the wisps respectively. The blue orbs did their own version of bowing before floating off, who knows where. Then his eyes drifted back to the raven, who was smiling as he waved goodbye to the wisps and he felt his chest twist up inside. He buries his stubborn pride for a second though and forces himself to get the words he wanted to say out. 

"...You too, Akira...and apologies for how I reacted...you were trying to help and you didn't deserve me snapping at you like that." He apologizes softly, glancing to the right at the ground. Akira once again is genuinely stunned by his behavior before smiling kindly at him. 

"Awww, it's okay. There's no hard feelings here...besides, you were just scared, right?" He guesses and the fairy's eyes glance over to the left before he nods, finishing with healing the one wing and switching to the other. Though, to say he was just scared would be a great understatement to say the least. A thought that immediately tires him and makes him rest on a boulder while he works.

“...come to think of it though, didn’t you say it yourself that wings are very important to fairies, Goro?” The boy asks him, casually out of the fairy’s view while he works. The brunette blinks at this sudden question. If anyone else was asked something comparable to this, he was certain some would feel like they are about to be verbally dissected. Like his own words could very well be used against him in a manner of minutes. Unusual but Goro doesn’t pay any mind to it as he focuses on his scraped wing and he answers him regardless. 

"Like a king without a crown, Akira. We wouldn't be us without them." He says. Akira hummed, taking the information in. Goro expects something other than that back but he doesn’t get any other responses from the teen. Since he was done healing his wings anyway, he curiously stares over his shoulder to Akira. There he finds an uncharacteristically...thought loaded gaze and he furrowed his eyebrows at the boy, wondering what is going on in his head to have such intensity in his eyes. Second the charcoal eyes catch his own, they widen and he glances away ashamedly. Akira’s most practiced habit of politeness usually but there had to be more to it, the fairy’s gut told him there was something he wanted to inquire of Goro about but felt he couldn’t.

“...If you want to ask something, ask it.” Goro sighs, waiting for whatever question was on the boy’s mind. In hindsight, he probably should’ve headed Akira’s tense aura before he dared to let him. 

“...Has there been fairies without wings before, Goro?” Goro freezes at the question. Akira asked it innocently enough, he was likely just afraid asking that would make him seem like an imbecile somehow. But…just what does Goro say to this? Should he say anything...? Does he personally want to disclose this? Shido certainly was worried about Ohya and Kawakami saying anything so surely he’d get in trouble if anything came out of his own lips, right? There’s so many reasons that Goro should just keep his mouth shut and avoid the question but…

“It's a rare occurrence...but from my experience, yes.” Goro says stiffly. 

“So you were close with some of them?” Akira asks him, curiously as he sat his body next to him on another boulder with his knees to his chest. Facing him once more. The brunette nods slowly although hesitantly. 

“....know one...knew another.” The dark eyes of the human boy squint at the vague and cryptic words.

“Knew?” He questions him. The fairy sucks in all the air that he can. Later regret be damned to hesitate at this point, he told himself.

“....my mother.” Akira’s entire body flinches in shock hearing those two words, knees going slack. The raven’s head jerked up to stare at him, eyes widened and pouting gloomily as he processed the crow fairy’s admission. Utterly distraught and guilt-ridden under his curly black bangs as he slowly moved to cower away from the brunette.

“....I-I-I’m so sorry. I-I-I shouldn’t have-” Akira started to stumble softly but Goro stops him by placing a hand on the raven’s knee and shakes his head at him.

“You didn’t know...it’s fine…” He simply says, pulling his hand away after. That it happened, absolutely not but that the boy made a mistake? That couldn’t be helped. It was a wonder why Goro was choosing to confide Akira in this though. What made him want to confess this to him? If he could’ve talked to anyone, it would make sense for it to be someone at the marsh and knew about this already so why? Why choose him? He’s brought out of these thoughts when he feels his shoulder be gently patted once more, stopping when the brunette looks up at Akira. 

“If it’s no trouble...would you mind telling me what happened?” Akira asks him, cautious to not accidentally sound like he was forcing the matter. Not to mention, he was looking at the fairy like he’d shatter at any second. Goro clicks his tongue and groans, feeling only slightly degraded by it. Other than that, his body still has the nerve to have everything under lock and key when he was asked to tell the tale of his worst memory. 

“It’s...It’s not exactly a chipper story, Akira.” Goro explains and Akira shrugs but his expression doesn’t change much. 

“Can’t imagine it is...it’s death, Goro.” The raven reasons and Goro lets out a long sigh. 

“Yes...but it’s…” He trails off because if he let his mouth run any further, he’d just keep naming every synonym of ‘tragic’ there was known to men and fairies. 

“Well...talking about things helps sometimes, Goro...if it could help you, I...I can handle it no matter how sad it is...but if you really don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine too. You have a choice and I’ll respect whichever one you make.” Akira affirms with him, determined fire in his eyes that the crow fairy’s seen in him for years making yet another return. Granted when he needed to, he’d deny that boldness but at this moment, even if he had the option to do so...he felt it would be a crime to refuse him. 

“...when I was younger, I went with her to get apples outside of the marsh.” Goro starts, catching the raven crossing his legs and hands clasped together over them as he listens in closely to his story. Which...might’ve made him feel better already. 

“It wasn’t that we needed food or anything. The marsh provided enough for everyone but...she loved the world outside as much as the inside so she’d always make an excuse to go out and see it...like that day. Such a poor excuse but Kawakami let her go anyway.” He laughs fondly at the memory as he keeps speaking. 

“And we did for the entire morning, grabbed flowers and other wild fruits too...” Goro finds his words trailing off again as he starts feeling like he’s getting suffocated, frowning deeply but keeps going. “...but I got impatient as I was ready to go home...she kept trying to keep me in place and tell me to wait patiently but...I eventually ran off without her noticing. My little head thought I’d be able to find my way back to the marsh and I’d just have a flower ready as an apology when my mom eventually came back...but it didn’t end well as you could imagine. I got lost and wandered for hours upon hours. I gave up trying to find the marsh after a while and just started calling for her, trying to find her again. I didn’t know where to go...and that’s when I heard her scream.” 

Akira’s expression grows gradually solemn at that, seemingly in union with Goro himself. The boy already had a fair idea what that scream meant. He always had been the clever one when he put his mind to it. “...I didn’t think much on how she screamed...I just thought at first that she got scared because she realized that I was gone...but it was loud enough that I could hear where it came from so I ran toward her and kept shouting anything along the lines of ‘I’m here! I’m here!’.” He pumps his fist in the air as he mimicked his younger self in a higher pitched voice before letting the arm fall limp as he goes quiet. 

“...and when you found her?” Akira prompts him to keep going, even while his skin is somehow turning paler than his already fair complexion. Goro swallows harshly. 

“...I found her basket and everything that was inside it knocked over...then just a few feet away, there she was...face down in the grass. They likely tackled her down and her clothes were smudged with dirt so she probably tried to struggle but she couldn’t use magic because they burned her with fairy-repellent metal...” Goro feels his voice start to crack as he keeps speaking, his vision getting blurry again. “Scarily enough, her being dead wasn’t the worst part of it...she had wings before that day, Akira...but when I found her...”

“...they stole her wings?” Akira asks faintly, his face full of horror. Two warm trails could be felt going down Goro’s cheeks and he instinctively wipes them away, not wanting to be seen bawling by the human boy. Anyone really.

“...the monsters killed her while they did it too...I mean, besides the metal’s burns, there were no other wounds besides the hideous and choppy slits where her wings used to be…so what else am I supposed to think?” Goro shakily snarls, hugging himself in an attempt to keep himself from falling over. Akira is doing no better either, he looked about ready to vomit his breakfast. 

“...that’s horrible.” The boy almost breathes and Goro chuckles bitterly at it. 

“You’re telling me…” He whispers back. 

“I know but really....that’s horrible...no wonder you didn’t want me to touch your wings…” Akira murmurs, holding his head as he copes with the eye-opening story he just heard. Then he glances up at Goro, like he had noticed that the trees’ leaves turned purple. “...that’s why Kawakami freaked out years ago, wasn’t it?” 

The crow fairy nods at that, still having more to add which he’s sure that the raven will be eager to hear him out, despite his state. “...the other wingless fairy I know...he knew who did it...he caught their faces but he couldn’t catch them in time to save her...he was the one who helped me back to the marsh and he offered to help me face them because they were the ones took his wings as well...I tried rounding everybody up to join once I got myself out of my slum but...nobody would. Now, I understand why they stood back but...then I was pissed at them for it...and I ran away from the marsh. It was scary, of course. Though I learned to deal with it...but it’s still hard to live knowing that your mother probably would still be with you if you were just a little patient...then again though, what could an almost year old fairy do against pure lack of remorse?...nothing.” 

Almost everything was there, the brunette was just waiting to see what else the boy would say. He hears nothing for a while so it scares him some when both of his hands are suddenly grabbed from across the two rocks. “Goro...I’m really sorry...if I could’ve done anything for her, I would’ve.” 

Goro almost scoffs at this but he doesn’t want to shove Akira’s kindness away so cruelly again so he immediately stops himself...Akira didn’t deserve it after being nice enough to listen. “...it’s already happened, Akira...and you weren’t even born when it happened, it’s okay. I don’t need you to tell me that.” 

“...I wouldn’t ever do something like that to you...you know that too right?” Akira suddenly asks him, looking genuinely worried at the idea which surprises the brunette. He stares back at the anxious boy, blinking at him blankly. His mom...after what happened to her, he honestly wouldn’t believe those words from any human. Promises and vows can sometimes easily become empty and crumble over time too. Seeing Akira so shaken up over this matter and saying something like that right now though…

“...I didn’t...but it means a lot though. Thank you.” He replies softly, an unfeigned smile creeping up on him before he can stop it. From the looks of it, the untypical smile on his face stunned the teen somewhat. Akira smiles back eventually though, laughing softly. 

“Gh-Good.” He simply says, unconsciously squeezing the fairy’s hands just a little tighter. It’s only then that Goro really takes note of the hand holding and he feels his face heat up some. Doesn’t the boy notice this too? Will he care if he asks him about it? Should he ask him to let go? But he doesn’t really want to bring any attention to it so- 

“ **Boys~!** ” The spirited voice of the pixie rings out but the volume alone makes both the boys jump out of their skin, putting an effective end to the ‘intertwined fingers’ situation. She hops down without a care from trees near them, smiling widely at the two in an aqua blue dress very similar to her red one. 

“I knew I recognized you mugs!” She greets happily, completely sober this time as opposed to her first meeting with Akira. She’s been good at moderating when she drinks since then. As she once told Goro, she wanted to make a better impression on Akira for the next visit. 

“Ohya...think about people’s heart rates once in a while and don’t say hello by popping out from the sky.” Goro scolds her with a groan. 

“Sorry, I just wanted to check up since I was passing by...though it seems I came while you two were in the middle of something.” She chuckles. He squints his ruby eyes at that and she points to his right. He glanced over and he saw that he had spread and puffed his wings out when she scared him. Over the disgruntled Akira who he could feel clinging to his feathers. The boy must’ve fallen over just as his wings came out...came out to protect him, Goro realizes with astonishment at his own involuntary reflex. However, the teen looks afraid that he’s going to be yelled at for snatching at the wings, apologetic eyes clearly on Goro. 

“...We were talking, actually.” The fairy answers her, pretending to not acknowledge the human that was clinging to him. The raven relaxed at that, grinning some just out of the corner of his eyesight which makes him frown some. The brunette doesn’t have it in him to glare at him for being smug about this though. The pixie only nods and hums, grinning widely still but she pauses when she notices the red rag and arrow. 

“What on earth happened here?!” She gasps, sincerely worried as she picks the items up and holds them out. 

“Somebody got into trouble and I had to clean his wounds.” Akira answers from over the fairy’s shoulder, sitting up carefully before getting up and letting go of the black feathers. Gently petting the rustled ones back down, earning a slightly flushed Goro whether the raven noticed or not. Ohya continues to scold him for not being careful while Akira only listens mischievously from the sidelines. He doesn’t mind her speech though as he grabs his wing and pulls it to himself. Fiddling with the feathers that Akira just fixed despite them looking completely fine. 

-

Long after the older pixie leaves them be (and gives the bloodied cloth back), Akira stays with him to watch the rest of the sunrise as it comes up over the castle in the distance. He hadn’t made comments about the boy’s grab at his wings earlier till the raven had brought it up to try and apologize. The fairy simply told him that he was in a good mood today and Akira seemed content with it, turning away from the topic with a proud smile once more. Soon though, the boy had to go early for morning chores he had so he eventually stood up to give his own farewell...but he stopped himself mid-walk. 

“Hey, Goro, do you...feel better after our talk?” Akira asks him worriedly. Goro has to take one moment to collect his thoughts about their talk as he almost forgot it happened after the intrusion of it. Only physical response he gives is a shrug before saying his conclusion out loud. 

“I...I probably won’t want to bring it up again unfortunately but...I’m glad we still got to talk about it today. It’s been kinda weighing on me for awhile…” Goro pauses, turning to the castle. “...thank you for listening, Akira.”

“Happy I got to help...just know, I’m always free to lend an ear if you feel like talking seriously again, okay?” Goro gives an affirmative nod at that and Akira gives a thumbs up back. He glances to the forest and back to Goro, only a little anxiously. “Well, don’t want to leave them hanging at home...”

Instead of a wave this time though, he gives him a hug. Wrapping his arm around Goro’s shoulders (careful to avoid brushing against the wings at all) and giving his body a gentle squeeze. It startled the brunette still as his face turned red for the third time but it ended shortly after and Akira released him from his arm hold. With that, he starts walking towards the path behind them and only then waves goodbye with a smile. “I’ll see you later, Goro!”

“Y-Yeah...You too, Akira.” Goro says as he airily waves back, still frozen after the exchange as he watches the red cape back of the boy disappear into the woods. He rubs the spot where the boy squeezed him, feeling it burn like the earlier touch to his wings. It wasn’t necessarily...unpleasant but he felt it was bad to let it linger any longer. However he feels some dread in his heart when he still feels the warm burn of the boy’s hand there after trying to replace it with his own touch. Exhausted by the weight of many things, he collapses on the ground with a sigh. He’s closes his eyes for rest but he’s only given ten minutes before-

“ **Goro!!!** ” 

Ah, right….Shido. He must’ve not said anything till now because Akira and Ohya were there. He’s going to have to explain himself...again. He brings the ring up closer to his mouth, ready to face the fact that he might lose his hearing today as he greets the old man back. “Yes, Shido?” 

“Why aren’t you anywhere near the cottage?” Shido asks him and both Goro’s eyebrows bounce up as he rubs his dry eyes. That’s the biggest issue right now…?

“I couldn’t sleep...so I went for a flight to tire myself out and I just ended up passing out here?” Goro explains and hearing Shido sigh, he knows he’s pinching the bridge of his nose. He expects to hear the typical blow up but he just gets a tired warning. 

“...just get back to the damn house, Goro. Don’t let this happen again...you need to keep your eye on the boy so you don’t lose sight of him, remember?” Goro nods with a hum as he forces his body back up. Shido only says one more thing before he cuts the communication off. “I don’t need you messing this up by being stupid.” 

Goro grimaces just a tad at that callous comment before he brushes it off and trudges on back to the cottage. It seemed he didn’t hear anything about his conversation with Akira or what happened after that, thankfully. He was spared of one issue that he had to deal with. Though he fears, his fingers still subconsciously over his shoulder, many other issues have arised on account of the events of today. 

‘ _What am I doing...?_ ’ He laments inside his head, kinda wishing he had bled himself out during the night instead. 


	8. I've Been Thinking...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Has anyone else noticed how close Akira is to turning eighteen? Because I only just noticed...Goro must be well aware of it though…because now it's only several days away. (So the plot is gonna get more concrete from here. No more banter. I can officially say it is real drama time my dudes.) Also I kinda miss playing go-fish with my grandma and my povs are growing inconsistent again but you know, I'm sure we all go through that...hopefully...
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

"There's not any problems with it but...do you really not have the time for his real big day?" The elder pixie questions while she deals herself and the crow fairy boy in front of her five cards. Ones that she had picked up from some stray merchant cart without them knowing...but she did leave some coins for them. Anyway, the two friends were currently starting a round of go-fish during the night in the forest as Goro wouldn't indulge her any other time. The fairy, with his only recent change to his physique being somewhat taller, blows a single strand of brunette hair out his face before picking up and flipping over his deck within his hands. 

"Is it that unusual that I need to be somewhere else that day?" He asks her, making sure that the cards are out of the pixie's eye view. She grimaces slowly at the question and gives a bobbly nod for her answer as she sorts through her hand, earning a harsh glare back from him. 

"Not to mention, we always celebrate exactly on his birthday. We always have for the past almost five years now...well, except for the very first time that he came here but mostly...so won't it be a bit weird to celebrate before his big day?" Ohya reasons with him before asking for any nines. Goro clicks his tongue as he shuffles his cards before calling 'go fish'. She picks out of the stray deck as the brunette continues the conversation, tiredly. 

"It's not our usual route but that's all that I see is odd about it...Regardless, I still need that day so...if you could get Kawakami and everyone to set things up early, that'd be fantastic." Akira's birthday was coming up, his eighteenth birthday. The day that he'd go back to the castle...along with other things. The trio was planning on leaving very early that day from what he overheard from the trees. Goro wouldn’t admit it but he would feel just a little bad if he didn’t do anything for his last celebration so the pixie's sudden invitation to talk brought him great relief for once. Somewhat, not completely. He asks her for any kings and she gives him one of clubs before giving him a response. 

"...fine, fine. I won't badger you about it. Just thought it was a bit funny that you would be gone for your little flame's first step into adulthood~" She teases him. The fairy's face flushes red and he almost drops his cards at the statement as he choked on air. He huffs and glares at her from behind his set as she asks for any sixes. After he begrudgingly mutters 'go-fish', she takes another card and then asks him, cheekily as she likely noticed that he regrettably didn't argue with her on that disgustingly cheesy nickname. "Special plans for it~?"

"I don't plan on professing anything, if that's what you mean…" He starts, regaining some composure and ignoring the disappointed huff from her. She has been bothering him to no end about his maybe crush on the human boy...that might be just a smudge more serious than she knew. If she only knew the many problems that would arise if he confessed to just how large his feelings had grown. He'd rather throw himself in a viper pit than confess many things to him. His great fondness was still there though and it was visible to almost the entire marsh, hence the next request. "...but I would like us to go all out for this one...as all out as we possibly can. Think you all can manage?"

"I think our best is more than manageable. Don't worry~" She reassures him with a revived grin. The brunette nods at this (although miffed by her still smug look), muttering 'thanks' before asking her again for any kings. She denies it this time and he picks up one of the cards from the spare pile. Under the moonlight, he takes four of the shimmering cards from his hand and sets them down which leaves him with only one single card. Ohya's jaw drops seeing the whole row of kings on the grass. " **Already?!** "

-

Everyone at the marsh was getting the place as bedazzled as they could until there were only four days left before the big move and Akira’s actual birthday. It was coming up rather short but it was the perfect day for it as this day and the next, the trio would usually be gone to buy their gifts. (After the mishap on the boy's thirteenth, they started making trips for the gifts instead of waiting.) It gave the two of them enough time to come to and from the place without having to worry about bringing him back home before sunrise. Although Goro ideally wanted to have Shido out of the picture for the party too. It would be irritating to be micromanaged when it was an event to have fun at...so he waited till night time to pick up his friend. Only once the three caretakers left and the sky was dark with midnight, he swooped down to the cottage. 

Night visits were still common between them (progressively more when the fairy needed company, not to talk but just be there) so the brunette felt completely at ease to walk right through Akira's room until he was standing by the raven's bedside. He clears his voice as comically loud as he could to get his attention but only the cat wakes up with a jolt, yowling at him. The noisy scolding of the cat stirs the human for one moment but he acts very little to see what was going on. 

_'A heavy sleeper as always.'_ Goro thinks with a grin. He snickers, bringing his hand over his friend's shoulder and giving him one hard shake.

"Gah-!" Akira yelps as he jumps up in his bed, scaring poor Morgana off it. He sits there stiff and spine straight, narrowing his sleep-heavy eyes around the room. Then he notices the crow fairy was there, backed only slightly away from the bed. He feels up his nightstand for the switch of his oil lamp and turns it once it's found, illuminating the room in a gentle yellow. "G-Goro? It's been awhile since you've visited this late...what's going? Did something happen?" 

Goro makes a grab for the bridge of Akira's glasses, which were also on the nightstand, unfolding them before handing them to the raven. Careful about his pale fingers, keeping them from smudging up the lens. The boy gives one sweet 'thank you' before Goro answers. "Nothing happened, don't worry...but I did want to take you somewhere."

Coal eyes fly wide open from behind the black frames when the boy hears that, utterly surprised by this while he sets it on his nose. Which would be fair, the brunette didn't bring him out this late since the lake incident. Not ever since the lake incident really. He really didn’t want to risk the human's health again. "Where and why?" 

"The marsh…for reasons." Goro answers simply. Not wanting to ruin the surprise, obviously. Seeing the raven just sit there even after he shares their destination, he rolls his eyes and motions him to move along. "I know...but just get your clothes on…I'm making an exception this time because there's something that I want to show you." 

Not a complete lie. The boy had never seen the marsh at night after all (one completely unintentional sprinkle of flare to the party) but the main intention of it was to keep his suspicion down low. Thankfully it seems to work like a charm because the mess bed-headed boy is up and rushing to change into some everyday clothes so Goro walks out through the bedroom door into the halls to leave him to it. There's one pause in it...but only because Akira stopped to let the tuxedo feline out of the room, who looked a bit rejected but wouldn't argue with his owner. The fairy snorts at the sight but says nothing otherwise about the matter. Once the boy is suited in proper attire, they head out into the woods and make their way to the marsh. 

"Can you at least give me a hint about what you're bringing me along for? Please?" Akira pleads with him during the walk, his curiosity still far from letting up after strolling for this long. 

"You'll know it when you see it there, Akira. Just be patient." Goro assures him with well practiced patience that he's gotten better with every year. Considering that he spends most of his time with the friend (and crush) currently walking right beside him. "We're almost there anyways." 

Akira pouts but he relents as they come up to the familiar wall of thorns. The brunette prepares himself before he casts the usual spell and lets the raven into the pathway like always. He follows inside after the boy is in, just as the hole closes up. Holding bated breaths, greatly hoping that the preparations went well. It’s the same routine trip until they reach the end and step into the marsh. The raven halts his steps as his eyes roamed over the place. “Woah…” 

The glowing trees everywhere lit it up, much brighter in the dark twilight compared to them during the daytime. Not only that but the long river was glimmering aqua, small pure white bubbles trailing behind schools of fishes’ and lighting up their way through the colorful current. Lanterns had been hung up on vines that had been tied to the trees and placed carefully about the ground, all different colors of fire magic. Goro felt relief, seeing that the boy was enjoying the spectacle enough, a clear smile on his face seen from the corner of his eyes...the fairy felt very relieved. Akira and him are startled though when some kind of pop and crack noise resounded out of nowhere. 

“Surprise!!!” Everyone shouts happily, each group of them seated at an old tree stump. As they would always use them for their tables. The boy smiles as he goes over to thank them for the surprise party, giving hugs and all. To quiet types like Souji, he’d give a high five. It really shouldn’t surprise the brunette anymore how easily the raven can make people like him but it still amazes him to this day. Charming enchantment can’t even compare to the power of his social butterfly ways. 

“Why this early though? My birthday isn’t for a few days still.” Akira asks with equal parts confusion and curiosity, hands on his hips once the hug parade is over. 

“Goro said that he’d need to take a trip that day...so he asked us to have the celebration early so he wouldn’t miss it.” Kawakami explains to him, glancing over at the crow fairy for a moment before immediately turning away with a scowl. The brunette furrows his brows at the peculiar behavior from the nymph but doesn’t think much as his friend tackles him with a hug. Arms wrapped loosely around his shoulders while he felt the human boy’s chest press against his left arm. 

“Awww~ Didn’t want to be left out, huh?” Akira cooed at him teasingly and Goro rolled his eyes at that, gently trying to shove the late teen off of him without any luck. 

“You’d pout like a baby if I wasn’t here and you know it.” He only grumbles, half annoyed and half laughing, making the boy let out an offended scoff as he removes the arm wrapped around his front off of him. 

“I wouldn’t pout…” He argues then he loses the vexed look in one relinquished shrug, patting gently on the fairy’s shoulder with the hand of the arm still around his back. “But I would be upset if you weren’t around so...thanks for being thoughtful.” 

“Don’t believe that one bit but your welcome..” Goro says with a smug grin, chuckling when his friend fully lets go this time by shoving him away playfully. 

“Alright, alright! The both of you are almost adults, not children...let’s get to eating first! Don’t want it all going to waste, do we?” The old pixie announces, leading everyone to the food table. They all follow her lead, eager to grab a bite. The two boys untangle themselves from each other and make their way to the buffet as well. However, Akira stuck close by him the entire way there. 

-

Later, the crow fairy found himself to be on plate watch while his friend joined every outgoing person and creature on the makeshift dance floor and he still sat at the sidelines with his own meal. If one whole plate full of fruit could be counted as one. Not that he didn’t like the other morsels that have been prepared but fruit was always his favorites, especially ones with a sweet taste. His teeth sunk into an apple and crunched as he was mesmerized by the raven’s twirling and swerving and...just every move he made. It was not the best dancing by any means but he looked like he was having the time of his life and the brunette was sure that was all that mattered to him, considering how loud his laughter rang out...but again, it probably seemed loud because Goro was hyper fixated at the moment. A consideration that makes him sigh. 

“Are you going to keep giving him heart eyes or are you actually going to try moving your butt up there?” Goro yelps when Ohya surprises him with her whispering, turning around to see her kneeling right by him. Wary of her knees touching the ground, not wanting to get her green dress (again, sewn with the same design) dirty. 

“You really want me to die young, don’t you?” He hisses quietly at her, blushing from his neck and up. The brunette turns away with a grumpy frown but he still listens to her enthusiastically encourage him.

“This is the best opportunity that you’ll get! Just go up and ask him to dance!” She whines, the tips of her fingers patting his shoulder and trying to get him to stand up. Which makes him groan and swat the offending nails away from him. 

“Completely out of the question, thank you.” He snarls, setting his place down on the table, crossing his arms and legs before turning back to the human boy’s show. 

“...you won’t at least try to have fun doing it with him?” Ohya argues with a huff, sitting next to him with one of her arms leaning against the same table with a tall drink in the opposite hand. 

“Nope.” Goro blurts, short and quick. The pixie simply tisked at him, holding up her glass to her lips. 

“You’re impossibly dreary and unromantic, Goro.” She lamented before taking one long sip and smacking her lips. The brunette groans, mad at her comment but couldn’t honestly find the energy to argue with her. Again, he couldn’t just act on these feelings. Even if he could, he was bold with everything but...these kinds of matters. That’s when he caught Akira’s eyes on him and the boy smiled mischievously, his intent directed straight at him. 

‘ _Oh no, please don’t do what I think you’re going to-’_ Of course, the raven runs right over to him and grabs him by the hand as he invites him to come up to the floor with him. His red eyes widen at being dragged up, trying to hold onto his seat desperately. 

“Noooo nononono! Don’t you dare-! What about your food?!” He insists and growls under his breath when he sees Ohya had picked up their plates and waved them farewell, her smile absolutely shit-eating. He yelped when Akira finally plucked him off his seat, not sure if he should cling to him more or push him away. “Wait! I dance terribly! I’ll make a fool of myself! I-!” 

“Come on, it’s fine!” Akira tries to reassure him as he continues to pull him into the large crowd. “Dancing is about making a fool of yourself anyway...besides, nobody will be watching you. They’re going to be too busy minding their own steps.” 

“It’s still embarrassing even if that is true…” The fairy groans, staring down at the ground in embarrassment as he digs his front heel into the ground. He hears nothing from the other boy until he feels fingers intertwine with Goro’s own and he’s pulled closer. Stunned, his gaze looks up to find a gentle smile on his friend’s face. 

“Just don’t think about it too much.” He only tells him before his feet are moving again, startling the flustered brunette but he gets his bearings before he tripped over their feet thankfully. Swaying in sync with his friend as they twirled around every passing dancer, whether their pairs or not. It was way too loose, medium-paced, and consisting of waving each other around by one hand to be proper ball-room dancing but it was still pretty close to it. Every now and again, Akira will surprise and twirl the brunette around before bringing him close again. His muscles were still tense from his fear but Goro somehow braves up and brings himself (while one of his hands are free) to wrap an arm around the boy’s side without a second thought. 

From what he can tell, Akira hardly even notices the shift. He merely continues to dance with him. He settles into it even, wrapping an arm around the brunette’s on the same side, like it was completely natural. On the sidelines, Goro would’ve noticed the only partially intoxicated Ohya cheering them and Souji (who was sitting next to a boy nymph) giving one short applause. However, he seemed to forget that anybody was even around. Plain as they were...the raven’s words helped ease his stage fright immensely. 

Faster and faster, the tempo of the band played but it was no match for them. The distance between them gradually grew short through their whole improvised choreography, going from inches to centimeters. They were so close and yet the fairy felt no breath between the two of them. Had he thought about it more in the moment, he would realize that they were solely focusing on nothing but each other right now. And only a few millimeters away now…

“Everybody!” Kawakami’s voice suddenly rings out and the music is cut off half-way through the melody, startling everybody (including them) out of their splendor. They all turn their heads to hear why she interrupted them. “The dragon show is ready, get over to the lake, please!” 

Mumbling eagerly amongst themselves, everybody starts to walk over just as instructed. Leaving their food alone for the time. Facing the crow fairy again, Akira blinks and blushes as if he realized something embarrassing before letting go of him which confuses Goro momentarily but then he realizes...they were pretty close. Way too close. Thankfully, the boy still lets Goro accompany him to the dragon show but the fairy’s face was burning with heat and mumbling in mortification for awhile. “Damn it all…” 

-

The crowd enthusiastically roared as every dragon each did their own fire tricks, all in different colors just like the lanterns. Most of them were sized medium or small while only few of them were large, likely to avoid collisions during the performance. Goro and Akira had settled down once they sat at the river edge, watching the sky serpents up above. Although, the one with red eyes kept glancing over at the one who owned coal. Akira was oblivious to the obvious staring though as he watched the beasts with pure fascination. Goro sighs before his eyes drift back to the show too. After the show, the crowd around left to pick up their food again but the two of them stayed there, at the boy's request. It was silent with the occasional short conversations that were prompted by Akira but compared to what transpired earlier, it was far from awkward. It was peaceful. It was calm. That is until...

"Hey, Goro?" Akira questions him out of nowhere. The fairy turns to him with an acknowledging hum. He sees that his friend is biting down on his lip while his coal colored eyes darted about the lake and his pale cheeks flushed pink. Not new behavior, definitely but the reason was always different with the raven. The brunette tilts his head, nudging his shoulder, giving him encouragement to go on. The human boy swallows before speaking clearly. "I've been...I've been thinking."

"Thinking?" Goro parrots, hoping he'll expand on this more. 

"...I've been living with the others for..so long...years...and I'll be an adult soon…" Akira adds with thought before trailing off, shyly. Goro's brows furrow at this. No, he wasn't gonna let him leave it at that. 

"And where are you going with this thought?" He asks with urgent curiosity, hoping it will get him to talk again. Akira clasps his hands together in his lap as he seems to mull it over before admitting...

"I've been thinking of asking them if I can move out of the cottage." Well, that's the last thing that he expected. Of course, he knew what was going to happen tomorrow. It wasn't like any of this would happen. However, he figured that he might as well humor his friend on this. It is what he'd usually do anyway, right? He grins up at him, resting his chin in the palm of his hand while it's arm rests in his lap. 

"Oh? That so? And where would you live?" He questions, teasingly. Though the raven doesn't get any upset glares or playful rolling of the eyes. In fact, Akira's face goes redder at that inquiry and he reaches his hand up to scratch the back of his head. His usual anxious tick. The brunette goes still at this, wondering just what the hell is bringing this reaction. What about this question was so nerve wracking for him?

"I...I was thinking of living in the forest…" A pause (which he has to repress some laughter during) before his gaze falls on Goro. Full of complete sincerity. "...with you…"

The crow fairy swears that his wings' feathers prickle and stand up straight at this. He stares at the boy, externally dumbfounded and internally terrified. "...Wha...With me?"

"Yeah, I mean...tha-think about it!" Akira stutters at first but his words become clearer along with their increasing zeal. "I spend so much time with you, anyways! If we both moved in together in the forest, they'd all still be nearby. Also I could see if I can get a job in the downtown, it is where Ann got her letter making job after all. We'll likely have to save enough for decent shelter but the rest is right in our hands! I mean we could also ask Ohya and Kawakami for help but I'd feel bad if I wore them out with demands-" 

Goro zoned out for the rest of it. This boy was too serious about this...he had to be joking, right?! He jumps when Akira patted on his shoulder to get his attention, which he gets as he turns to face him immediately. The raven stared back at him with the most dejected puppy eyes. "...sorry, did I get ahead of myself? You don't look happy about it…" 

' _Don't give me that look…! **I can't let you down like that!** ' _

"No no no! I-I'm...I’m thrilled!" Goro almost wheezes through the shock that was coursing in him as he gives one small fist pump to the air. "It's just...I didn't expect you to…let me come along?"

Akira appears genuinely taken aback by this reason but his sheepish expression returns within seconds. "Well...I really like spending time with you, Goro. That's why I thought...you'd be the perfect one to room with!" 

' ** _No…please don't say that!_** ' Goro grits his teeth behind his closed mouth, becoming nauseous with every word. He didn't lie when he said that he'd like to move in with him. But...he just couldn't. 

"Well, if there’s no objections...when you come back and I'm ready to leave...then we'll be on our way?" Akira asks with his most lively smile, eyes gleaming brightly. 

' _ **I should reject him! I HAVE to reject him! Come on, Goro! Just say no!!!'** _

"...Yes. Yes, we will be." Yeah, Goro has never wanted to punch himself any more than he does right now. There's no chance for him to fall into self deprecation though as he's brought into the tightest hug by his human companion. Not to say that it wasn't pleasant as always...but it also felt like he was burning in acid, just a little bit. Still, he returns it with a small squeeze of his own. 

"It's a plan then!" Moment is over as soon as it begun, the boy pulls away with a cheerful grin. Only to keep his hands on the brunette's shoulders still. Goro himself feels frozen in place, holding onto him as well. Almost like when they were dancing before..then someone is heard clearing their throat. 

"Oh, Kawakami!" Akira greets and she comes over, giving a polite nod to him. 

"Sorry to interrupt but it's present time and everyone’s waiting for you." She says with a smile. Akira, like the child in spirit one he is, immediately gets up and runs to the table excitedly. Goro goes to follow him but is stopped by the grip of the nymph’s hand on his shoulder. He turns around, confused by this abrupt action. Akira does as well, halting in his dash. She simply smiles and waves him off. 

"I also need to talk with Goro...but I'll have him back before you know it, Akira." She reassures him, sweetly. Akira looks at Goro, then at Kawakami, and back before smiling. 

"Okay, that's fine...see you at the table, Goro!" He chirps then rushes off. It’s very egocentric, he knows but Goro can't help feeling a bit of gushy pride at the fact that his friend said his name and forgot to address Kawakami all together. Only his name. The rosey feelings are swiftly crushed though by his habit of shoving these feelings down. Not that it kept them away. No matter how much he shoved and shoved, they were there to stay and ever growing...but he could dream. 

"Akira…" Kawakami hums from behind, as if testing the name out before it drops to a solid tone that sends all of his feathers pricking back up. "... **Prince Akira**."

"...how?" He asks, knowing that he'd been caught hearing that one title alone. There's no way that he can lie to her about it.

"You know me, I'm usually too bothered to catch up with the news...but my curiosity got me lately when you told Ohya to get the party ready early to attend to chores...you usually make all the time for Akira that you can, after all...barely got through half the town before I heard that the cursed prince Akira would be returning to the castle in a few days and...I’m sure that I don’t have to explain the story...considering you were there." She sighs. Not mad but gravely and greatly disappointed...and somehow that was more crushing than her being mad. 

"...does anyone else know?" He asks, glancing over to the large tree stump table where everybody was cheering for each gift that the boy opened. She shakes her head. 

"...you should be the one to tell anyone, not me." She states, finally letting go of him. "But that doesn't mean I can stop anyone outside the marsh from saying anything." 

Goro doesn’t say anything, crossing his arms and keeping his shoulder to her but he still feels the heat in her eyes through his clothes still. "...Akira may come off as oblivious sometimes but he's not stupid, Goro."

He knows that, he’s the one who spends the most time with him. 

"Even if you say nothing, he'll find out on his own eventually. If you're not able to release the curse, you should tell him, at least before he leaves."

Yeah...like hell he's going to tell him.

"...then I'm going to release it." Goro insists with confidence, his eyes on the smiling boy as he puts on a flower crown that one of the younger fairies made but he's certain Kawakami is shaking her head at him. 

"I hope for Akira's sake that you can..."

-

As quietly as he could, Goro flies through the cottage windows of Akira's room in his crow form. He made certain to come way late into the next night (as he couldn't get the chance after the party because Akira was still energetic and didn't pass out till light came through his window) so that no one was awake or could stir out of their sleep. Not Akira, not Shido...nobody. His steps did alert the napping tuxedo cat that was laying on the floor instead of being by the human boy's side (this time) but his body slowly relaxed when the fairy didn't do anything else. In a huge puff of smoke, he's standing over the boy with worried, cream-colored lips. 

"....." The brunette cracks his knuckles and some thinner red clouds of magic emitted from them. With smooth and slow hand motions, it swirled and enveloped the raven like the day that this mess started. He was just as undisturbed too, in pure, oblivious peace while he slumbered. This time though there was a deep ache in Goro's heart seeing it rather than glee, knowing what he did. All the more reason that he had to do this...

"Revoke my curse." He demands as a dark blood red core of the old spell rose from the chest of the boy. It came loose for a moment but started to recede back inside, almost pulling Goro with it as his heel skidded on the wooden floor. The brunette grits his teeth and furrows his eyebrows while he struggles with it, playing tug of war with the pesky blight. It was ironic really, seeing how it's chosen host used to be the fairy's greatest nuisance. How the tables have turned. 

"You hear me? I said, I revoke my curse!" He hisses at it, growing even more frustrated. Though he's weary about keeping his voice low, not wanting to bring himself any disruptions or be caught. No matter how much he struggled and wrangled with it however, it would barely budge one inch. Not even half of one. 

"C-Come on...why...won't...you…move-! Gah!" Goro gasps and groans as the magic backfires on him in a semi-explosive burst, a stinging burn hitting his hand when he's zapped by the brunt of the combustion. Holding and rubbing the pained hand, his ruby eyes watch in horror and anger as the curse is seeping back under the boy's skin. He growls under his breath. "Why...why didn't it…?" 

_'-he'll then fall into a deep sleep...never to wake again…and there's no spell or magic in the world that will save him from his fate."_ The fairy hears his own haunting, sardonic, malice-laced voice echo through his head as the almost invisible doom disappears from his eyesight completely, his stomach dropping and his entire body going completely cold. Because of which one? Terror, rage, or sadness? All of them are definitely up there but...above all, he felt contempt. Contempt because he can't dispel his own damn curse. Contempt because he couldn't save Akira, the boy who trusted him with every speck of his royal soul. Contempt because he realized too late that he has made...a big **big** mistake. 

It felt like he was swallowing tiny shards of glass while he threaded his fingers through his long chestnut colored hair, anxiously. Trying to find any sense of calm that he could but only to fail, pathetically. He kept muttering and shaking his head in denial, needing to repress kicking something while he was still inside the house. Any composure he could find, he used it to turn into his crow form and fly outside. Stopping at nothing. Not turning back once until he sets his small talons on a nearby branch. Then he starts racking his brain for possible resolutions. 

His magic obviously wasn't gonna bring him any results. Kawakami was practically empty on magic most of the time so he couldn't count on her (and she'd likely be too angry with him). Ohya is a pixie, all of her magic is for mischief so it would be stupid to think she could help stop even a small curse. The trio back with Akira have not practiced their magic once since coming here...and if they could've done anything to stop it, they probably would have already. There were no options except…

Goro gulps.

-

' _I just...hope that he'll hear me out…for once._ ' Goro thinks, holding his ring up patiently despite his dread. Far out enough that he could see the rising dawn. (Although, it looked like it would turn stormy very fast during the day.) One to get the old man's attention...and two to make sure that anybody that he didn't want to be listening to him couldn't catch anything he’d say. He’s not in too much of a hurry since he still had one day left but hopefully there won't be too much time before-

" **Goro**! Where are you?!" Ah, that didn't take long at all. 

"Out in the woods, I know but there's something that I need to-" Goro starts but Shido cuts to the chase with a snap. 

"Make it quick!" The crow fairy hesitates at this but he speaks. 

"I've been thinking…" Goro almost trails off like his own friend did before but he forces himself to keep going, less he infuriates the older fairy anymore than he already has...so he blurts out. "I-I want to call off the curse but I can't banish it." 

"... **What**?" It barely sounds like a word with how low he hisses it but the brunette catches it, thankfully. He has no chance to respond though as Shido keeps flapping his mouth on and on, making Goro curl more and more on himself. "Time is almost up, we are almost there, and you want to call it off?? And why?! Why do you want to undo it all after years of waiting?!?!"

"I-I…" Fair question but he couldn't tell Shido the answer to that...he couldn't tell him that he even cared for the boy. He'd chop off Goro's head, if his outburst when the younger fairy played the music box was anything to go by. The elder groans when he's met with nothing but silence. He figured it out anyway...damn it.

"I knew getting too close and chummy with the kid would make your heart soft...might I remind you, in case you forgot somehow, that you should be happy about this-" Goro winces in shame. "...I sure as hell am...and even if I wasn't, I couldn't banish the curse either." 

The brunette's face goes pale at that. Shido pays what he can imagine is his very apparent distress no mind as he keeps explaining. "It's like you said then, nothing can stop it from happening...if not even you, the creator, can stop it...who could?" 

The crow fairy tries to keep face but his black wings droop low without him realizing and he hears another quiet, angry growl from Shido. "...forget about him before you get hurt, Goro…that's all I can say to make things better. Now, is that all you wanted to ask about?" 

Goro bites his lip, feeling numb and stunned as he answers quietly. "Y-Yes, sir…" 

Shido hummed. "...if your heart's not in it, you don't have to watch him from here on out. It should be safe for you to distance from him so I'll take care of it...you do whatever you want...but don't try to get in the way again, it's already a lost cause...and I still want him dead...you understand what I'm saying, Goro?" 

"...Yes, sir." He repeats but his voice is growing meeker, his free arm hugging his queasy stomach. 

"Good...come back whenever you feel like it...talk to you soon." And with that, his end of the line goes dead. Goro's arm drops as his body starts to shake, leaving him bound into the spot as the clouds in the sky build up into a noticeable grey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I thought the last chapter hurt the most but writing the regret and guilt finally bashing Goro in the head felt like I was being whip-lashed to and fro...especially during the scene with Akira asking Goro to live with him
> 
> ...I wonder how much the next one will hurt.


	9. Doesn't Matter Anymore, Your Majesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd say everything has been tame up till now...aside from Goro’s little story about his mom and Akira’s doom slowly coming closer with no signs of stopping...but I feel obligated now to say...strap yourselves in cause the angst train has gone off the track and it’s going to be a RIDE...and not just for this chapter but for likely the next two chapters or so…? Eh, who knows? Anyway, hope you enjoy Akira and Goro (but mostly Akira) having the worst day ever.

Akira giddily awaits for his caretakers to return, making an effort to make the place presentable while the time passes. It wasn't like dust picked too heavily or he trashed it but he figured it'd help keep the moods high when he tells them the news. Morgana watches him from the stairs since it didn't look like his owner would stop moving any time soon. He kept pausing to check for the fairy through the window though. He knew that the fairy said that he'd be gone for his whole birthday but if they were going to move in with each other than he'd plan to come back earlier, right? The boy sighs impatiently but concedes that there was nothing he could do about it. "Still...let's hope he does." 

It feels like hours and hours have ticked away. The sky seemed to be growing dim too with dark clouds, some fog was building up too. The raven taps his feet anxiously as he sits at the table, hoping that his caretakers weren't going to be caught in a storm. Everything around him has long become completely clean, not a speck of dirt anywhere so he had nothing to do but wait with a decent book in his hand. He leaned to reach down and scritch the back of Morgana's head when he walked over to him, only for the feline to slink away. Akira stares incredulously at the cat, who went on to grooming himself in a corner after rejecting the affectionate hand offered to him. "...I don't understand you sometimes."

The boy perks up when he finally hears the sound of hooves galloping, getting up and running to the window. Sure enough, he sees two recognizable blondes and an equally familiar tall figure between them. He grins as he waits for them to get out of the carriage and into the house. Ann is the first to walk in; he knows since Morgana immediately runs up to the door before it even opens. 

"Welcome back, guys!" He greets happily as Ann's head looks up and she smiles back, creaking the door closed once she was inside. 

"Thanks, Akira...I see you've been busy…" She states, looking around at the almost pristine of the kitchen. Ryuji then comes in, whistling at his extensive cleaning job. 

"You weren't too lonely without us, right?" He jokes, partially out of worry but Akira shakes his head at the notion. 

"Oh no, I was fine. Don't worry." He reassures them happily. Yusuke comes in as well but he barely sees the shocked gaze in his eyes as Ann comes up and questions him. 

"You're really chipper, considering you did all the cleaning when you often absolutely despise it, Akira…" She accuses and Akira clasps his hands together, almost sheepishly. 

"Uh yeah, about that…" He starts but Ann stops him, wagging a finger at him. 

"Nononono...I know...tomorrow is your birthday, right?" She guesses with a triumphant grin and Akira nods, smiling a bit himself.

"Yes, it is but-" He interrupted again when Ryuji hands him a pile of wrapped clothes. Just like when he gave him the cloak. He stares down at them with confused wonder before shifting his bemused expression to the blonde boy. He only grins back with arms crossed. 

"One of the gifts is going to be a long, early in the morning trip so you're gonna have to open the other two today. Now come on! Open it!" He urges, enthusiastically. 

' _Everybody is celebrating early, aren't they?_ ' Akira thinks, still stunned but he slowly begins to open it. Inside he finds an outfit very similar to most of his own casual wear but it was easy to tell that it was sewn to be formal wear. Though it was pure black, he could see much more details in the vest that buttoned up high up his collarbone to go with the dark wine red shirt and the pants that matched his eyes. Not to mention, everything was so tightly fit compared to the loose baggy clothes. It even came with an ascot! 

"Ann said you don't have any fancy clothes so…you know." Ryuji shrugs before giving him a good pat on the back. "Happy birthday." 

Akira gaps like a fish at the new clothes but he snaps himself out of it, shaking his head and setting them down on the kitchen table. "Thank you, I really appreciate it-" 

"That's not all of it…" Yusuke pulls out a pastel lavender box and places it gently on the table before pulling up the lid. Inside was the most beautifully frosted cake that Akira had ever seen. White made up the base layer but it was detailed with colorful flower designs, the vines and some buds growing up from the sides while full grown flowers went around the ridges. Not too bright to be obnoxious but not too dull to miss it. Then in the middle is Akira's name. His mouth easily began to water looking at it. (Sorry Ann's past birthday cakes!)

"Would've gotten a better cake than this since we had the money...but Ann said that tiers would fall apart on the ride back...sorry that we had to get you this instead." Yusuke comments solemnly. Akira immediately shakes his head. 

"It's great enough, Yusuke! Thanks!" He says then clears his throat, resisting the urge to just stuff his face right there. "But before we dig in, I need to tell you guys something!" 

Both males halted their excitement at this. Ann joined them but not until she had a glass of water in her hand. Likely thirsty from the long travel back home and having to work with what little water they had left on hand. The three exchange glances before they nod at Akira to tell them. He beams gratefully at this, his hands still clasped but tighter now. "Thanks!"

The boy takes a breath before he starts explaining. "Well, I'm turning eighteen soon...which means that I'll be an adult, right?" 

"Correct." Yusuke confirms. Ryuji and Ann each have suspecting gleams in their eyes though. 

"Exactly...and with age comes freedom, right?" He asks. Ryuji and Ann nod slowly but never lose their expressions. Akira bites his lip nervously at this but continues. "...not to mention, you all have been watching me for years and-"

"What's the point your gettin' at here, Akira?" Ryuji finally speaks up, clearly just wanting him to get to the point. Ann glares at the blonde for interrupting but then nods to the raven. She wanted to know what he wanted too. Akira inhales slowly and…

"Sometime after my birthday...I want to move out." He says simply and he jumps back in fright when Ann's eyes widen (along with the boys) and does the harshest spit-take on the floor, making the poor girl wheeze and start hacking her lungs out. With a few good pats on the back from Ryuji and she is fine again but only for her to shriek-

"What?!" 

"Well, like I said, I'm an adult and I've been living here for pretty long so...I think it's time for me to get out of the nest." He shrugs but she is still as stone, staring blankly at his explanation. "If you're worried about me providing for myself, I'm sure that I can get along fine in the woods. I've been going out there for my whole life anyway so it's not like-"

"It's not that, Akira…" Yusuke tells him and Akira immediately drops it, unclasping his hands so that he can drop them to his sides loosely. 

"Then...what's the problem?" He asks them. Silence as both the boy caretakers back away slowly, so quietly Ann almost didn't hear them leaving her in the frontline. She glares at them for ditching her but turns back when Akira asks her again. "Why can't I go?" 

She fiddles with her fingers for one moment in thought before she reasons with him. Promptly. "It's...you just can't, Akira. It's too dangerous for you." 

The raven's heart plummets, hearing that reason once again. He's heard that one way too many times. Even with all the freedoms he's given, he still finds himself pulled back by a kiddie leash. He's almost an adult...he's not a baby...why can't she count on him to take care of himself? "B-But Ann, I already said, I'm sure that I can handle it on my own-"

"You don't even know what's out there, Akira...beyond the forest." Ann almost growls but she was clearly holding back for his sake. To not scare him...even though he's truthfully not even scared in the first place. He's far from scared.

"I can take it on, I've gotten this far by making many mistakes that I've learned from...don't you trust me to keep myself safe after all of that?" He asks her desperately. She bites her lip, turning away and back again. 

"Akira...it's just not a battle that you can win so just…" She lets out a small frustrated groan, holding her forehead then sighs. 

"Just stay here…it's nothing personal, Akira. Trust me, it is just for your protection." Akira's left eye squints and the corner of his mouth curls into a half snarl. Her words were tamely said and usually he calms down hearing her mention that it's for his protection but...right now, it infuriates him because just what exactly gives her the right to decide that?! Why…

"And just why can't I decide that for myself?! Why can't I decide anything for myself?!?!" He snaps, pounding one of his hands on the table so hard that you'd think that it'd break on impact. All of their eyes bulge wide at his outburst, not used to him being this loud even as a baby. Ann looks about ready to scold him but she also seemed conflicted. Akira doesn't care at the moment though as he removes himself from the table to face them down with the most heated glare they've ever seen from him. 

"Why?!?! Last I checked, I've never asked you to decide everything for me!!!" He shouts, arm and hand thrown out, almost waiting for an explanation from Ann, who stood shocked in front of him. If he paid attention, he'd see Ryuji grimace at his comment. He would've also seen Yusuke try to reach out but hesitate at the last minute. Of course though, his eyes were solely on his female caretaker. The need to argue with the enraged teen dissipates from her eyes, replaced by regret and faint sadness. 

"Akira…" Ann tries to soothe but Akira can't stop himself despite the all sweet and motherly tone she was speaking in. He is a machine running on pure impulse and adrenaline as he starts to pace left and right at the door, hands away from Ann and now being thrown in the air. Up and down violently throughout his entire rant. 

"You always tell me what I can't do, how far I can go...you made all the rules and I **respected** it because I know all you three want is to just keep me safe. I know you guys just care very much and mean well but...but sometimes I felt anything but safe! I felt...I feel suffocated-!" He shouts at them, a harsh boom in his voice. A kind of voice he didn't think he was capable of honestly. Yet here he was...his head was steaming up like a boiling tea kettle from how much he's shouting. 

"Akira-" Yusuke quietly tries to speak up but again, the raven isn't stopping. He growls in his frustration, left hand grabbing for the door. 

"I'm sick of it! So unless you have **one** good reason for me to not go besides my ‘protection’, I'll be leav-!" 

" **You have to see your father tomorrow!** " Ryuji shouts and the fire burning in Akira is swiftly snuffed out, his eyes widening. His palm loosening from the golden knob slowly. 

"....What?" 

That was all he said but the blonde's face pales greatly, like he’s foreseeing a strong, feral pack of wolves coming their way. Along with the other two. Must've been something bad because it didn't take long for Ann to start raising a fist at him, murder running in her veins. 

"Ryuji, you-!" Just as she's about to mince his head however-

"Ann…!"

Yusuke, to the surprise of all of them, grabs her wrist in stone grip as he protests with a loud shout. Ann stares up at the pale man with pure confusion and outrage till he explains with a grim face...it was the saddest eyes that Akira has ever seen when it came to the calm man. The only time that could come close was when Ryuji accidentally got juice on one of his still drying artworks, washing all of the beautiful progress and paint away. 

"...He was bound to find it all out eventually...we can't keep it from him, Ann." He simply says and Ann's defensive stance slacks...but sadly rather than relaxed. She slowly turns to Akira, her expression completely crestfallen. He only stares back with bewilderment, his eyebrows struggling on deciding whether to furrow in fear for his caretaker's glum expression or rise in shock again from the other blonde's earlier claim. Saying nothing, she drags her feet to the dining table and pulls out Akira's seat at the table before going to hers. All three of the boys follow, confused Akira being the last one to sit down. 

"...what's he talking about, Ann?" He asks her, his arms crossing on the table. She places her own arms on the table, palms clasped together. 

"...sorry we've never told you...after all, you were wondering about them for awhile...weren't you?" She questions and he nods. He assumed they were his 'parents' when he was younger but it changed when he heard Haru call her dad…'dad'. Not by name like he had with his caretakers. It wasn't like he didn't consider them family still but he still asked Ann if he had parents. She never answered, just kept distracting herself to get away from the conversation so…

"When I got older...I just assumed they weren't around anymore and you didn't want to tell me." He says and Ann let out one long, guilt-riddled sigh before she confesses. 

"...your parents asked us to watch over you when you were barely a year old...your father is still alive...and he's the king. King Sojiro." The air is already knocked into Akira's lungs at that statement alone. 

"The...the king? W-Wait but that means that I...I'm…" He starts to mumble but Ann helps him move along, nodding her head in confirmation. His mouth is agape for a moment, baffled that he was a prince and he never knew about it! It doesn't last long though as he forces himself to continue questioning as another thing she said caught his attention. 

"You...said only he's around?" He asks and Ann bites her lip nervously. Ryuji speaks up for her. 

"Not long after you were gone, both your parents tried to have another kid...they had a healthy girl after tryin' for some time but cause of complications...the queen died." He explains. Akira only shook his head at this. That's...sad. Depressing especially knowing that she was his mother too but...

"Hold on...why is he asking me to be the heir now then? Didn't they...abandon me?" He can't help but ask. What else is he supposed to think when he was supposedly given to the three for them to watch over him not long after his birth? Why didn’t he fit the role as the heir till now? Why wasn’t he good enough for them till now? Why now?

"No, your parents wanted to keep you around, Akira. They loved you a whole lot and I was there to see it, honest." Ann says insistently but he still has trouble seeing how so he keeps questioning. 

"Then why did they give me to you guys and didn't raise me themselves…?" A question he starts to regret, seeing all three's remaining composure crumble. Yusuke turned to the floor so he could avoid Akira's eyes, Ryuji bowed his head as he scratched the back of his head, and Ann's clasped hands gripped tighter onto each other. She still finds her voice despite the despairing look though. 

"...there was a party for your birth...all of us came to grant wishes as we were-...as we are fairies...it was only supposed to be the three of us...only three fairies...but...out of nowhere, this one fairy came and crashed the party...instead of bringing a gift though...he cursed you...at the sunset of your eighteenth birthday...he said that you'd prick your finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a endless sleep...as you wouldn't be able to wake up...since then, your father has been trying to hide every one of them away...tried to burn the ones that belonged in the castle but the spindles wouldn't burn...and as extra measure, we were to keep you here incase he decided to...you know…" She goes quiet. Akira shakenly makes a slice motion across his throat, the implication graphically clear. Though she cringes strongly at it and her eyes squint as if in pain, she nods before continuing. 

"Incase he decided to do **that** early….I've tried to help you get a way out by using my wish because it was interrupted by that fairy but...frankly, I'm losing hope on it doing much to help." She finishes, her voice croaking at the end, going silent after and honestly...Akira wasn't sure what to say either. How's he supposed to react to being told...his unavoidable death, that he’s been unaware of his whole life (along with his true identity), was fast approaching…? He always heard the best of fairies...he's been raised lovingly by three of them right under his nose (although over protectively but after hearing all this, it was reasonable in his eyes why they were so paranoid)...yet one of them is responsible for his demise…? His hands slid close to the edge of the wooden surface so his knuckles could turn white gripping it. His body was slowly curling on itself and his shoulders were shaking.

"Why…?" He simply whispers, not really addressing anyone but air but he hears Yusuke answer him anyway. 

"The reason is unknown, Akira...it's a real mystery...the fairy had nothing but pure hatred in his eyes...when his kind shouldn't even come close to knowing that kind of animosity…" 

…his eyes widened.

…..something about that struck a thought with him. 

….something from his books on magical creatures, particularly the docile tempered fairy section.

…something he didn't want to consider because of scary personal reasons but the thought was already digging deep in his head…

"...W-What kind of fairy was he exactly…?" He asks, his voice growing weaker but he forced himself to talk loud so he could be heard. His voice, wavering more than usual but still managing to be strong and loud as always, Ryuji answered. 

"A...crow fella, I believe?...” He mumbles in thought and Ann nods in confirmation, her brows furrowing in suspicion…no wonder he had a bad feeling about asking this. 

“Yeah, it was a crow fairy…why?” She turns to him, suspicion turning to worry. His skin goes cold...his palms grew clammy...a large lump forms in his throat...and he may just throw up but he jolts up instead, grabs his cloak, and runs outside without any reconsiderations. 

"Akira!!!" Ann calls out to him and he hears them all start to run after him but mother nature seemed to be in a similar mood today. No light peeking through the clouds, just pure grey and it left even the luscious green land he grew to love dull as a rusted blade. Shine nowhere. To top it all off, there was rain and thick fog that he could just barely make his way through as he rushed into the woods. At least it was providing him cover from his guardians. 

"Goro...!!!" He calls out, his throat burning for more reasons than how many times he tries to get the fairy to come to him over time. The brunette said that he'd be gone but considering the new revelations, he couldn't have gone far. He goes through the tree path, past the thorn wall and he finally reaches the cliff. On this day though, he can barely see the castle that he and Goro watched from afar that one day as it's buried by the thick grey around him. Two small towers of it and the tallest tower's tip can only be seen. All the places he's met with him and he's nowhere. Akira is just about to give up, turning away from the view with a frustrated grunt but stops when he hears a loud thump and a whoosh behind him. 

"Sorry, just came back from-" The brunette starts but seems to sense the teen's invisible dark cloud as he quickly shuts up upon looking at him. Akira could just feel the fairy’s tense energy as he seems to take some very hesitant steps closer till he finally comes up right behind him. Seconds after, likely for Goro to look him over and try to find any visible clues on what was coming before he adds in a hushed tone. "...is something wrong?"

He inhales deeply before turning to face the crow fairy. "Goro...did you know I was cursed?" He asks softly, trying his hardest to hide how dry his throat was getting just facing his lifelong friend...he had hoped it was just his speculation getting ahead of him but-

".......I did." The brunette admits with a nod, stepping back some with a conflicted expression on his face. Akira gulps the lump in his throat when it grows one size bigger before speaking once more. 

"Then...I suppose you wouldn't happen to know who cursed me too. Wouldn't you, Goro?" He accuses though his voice was still soft and he didn't sound too harsh when he said it. Regardless, the fairy froze immediately at the words it seemed. Ruby-colored eyes making no effort to meet his coal ones and completely avoiding eye contact as he steps farther away. Some would think that was all he needed to confirm his suspicions were true...but still he wanted to hear it. Akira narrowed his eyes harder at him, stepping forward. 

"....it was you….wasn't it, Goro?" His voice croaks. 

The crow fairy gazes down to the ground a moment before looking back up at him. In the flattest tone, he told him. "...Yes, it was me."

The answer that he was dreading to hear being said so casually, Akira should really want to smack him but…he only shakes his head at him as his eyes start to burn. 

"...Why, Goro? Why me?" He pleads to know, stepping forward, standing directly in front of Goro and leaving very little space between them. The crow fairy who stood tall doesn't answer though so Akira grabs his shoulder, gripping like the fairy himself would do to Akira's shoulder in crow form. Though he was sure his hold wasn't as gentle as the crow feet were… However...those soft, all comforting moments seemed tainted with malicious intent now. He still couldn't handle the thought at all but he had to wonder, in this new light...was Goro really his friend? The fairy bites his lips hard at that but he still doesn't answer.

"Goro, tell me...why did you choose me? Why did you attack me? What did I do to you?!" He demands, glaring at him and digging his nails deeper before he’s gently shoved off. 

“ **Your parents, Akira.** ” Goro blurts out hastily and the raven does a double take before raising an eyebrow at him. Goro inhales, arms crossed before he starts. 

“You’re...you’re parents…” He trails off but Akira wouldn’t allow it at this moment. He motions the fairy to keep telling him, eyes still narrowed authoritatively. With the click of his tongue, Goro does. 

”Your parents...they did me wrong...and...and I wanted to get them back...simple as that. Nothing more, nothing less.” This doesn’t really answer anything for Akira though. He's in this kind of situation and Goro still has the guts to be vague? Also...

“But...t-that doesn’t make any sense, Goro. Why go for me instead of them if they made you angry?” Goro almost opens his mouth to say something but Akira interrupts with another question that he found more important, his voice shaking. “O-Or better yet, Goro, what...what did they do to you for you to handle it...LIKE THIS? What's worth my head?” 

Akira hoped he could keep his stance strong but...Goro’s long stare at the ground crushes Akira’s rage in seconds. It only takes seconds for him to find the dark storm that had suddenly brewed in the sea of red in his friend's eyes and the flat frown that only trembled on the corners. He had seen that despairing look before...and when he remembers when, his already natural fair complexion manages to turn even paler. 

“....they...they didn’t…” He starts to mumble but seeing the fairy’s solemn face scrunch up with rage before settling into heavy sadness, he stops his feeble words and his eyebrows furrow. “...so...they did it?...but...if you weren’t there to see it, how do you know?” 

Calm as he manages to be, the crow fairy still glares at him through a whole pause but then Goro sighs as he takes a seat on one of the boulders. “Like I've said before, there was the only one other fairy as a witness...my mentor...he didn't get there fast enough to stop them but he came close to see what was going on...mostly importantly, he saw their faces…and again, they were the ones who got his wings too so he had no doubts when he saw it was them.”

“I-I see….” Akira said before he bites his lips, seeing the expression on Goro’s face so wretched looking and his nails digging almost painfully into his hands; leaving bright red crescents on them. He slowly moves to sit on a boulder as well before he adds, “That’s...That’s hard to hear considering it’s my parents but I believe you, Goro...but t-that still doesn’t explain why you chose to curse me instead of them.”

There’s another pause. Then he speaks. “...I lost my mom when I was a child...so me and him thought...that it was only fair that they didn’t deserve to have a child of their own...much less one that would grow to be the heir of their throne and carry on their damn legacy. Luckily and unluckily for them...that happened to be their very first child after trying so much...you.” 

Akira only sits there shocked...so that was it, huh? So...all this time that he thought Goro was there to protect him...he was waiting to see that the curse would carry out without fail. To assure that he died and his revenge was a success...he should just be mad...but he can only ask. 

“...You know **this** isn’t any better than what they did, right?” 

“I don’t care about being better...I just...I just...” The brunette trails off for a moment, hesitating. Akira hears him let out a sharp, shaky breath and sniff somewhat before he answers. “…my mother was the one that I loved the most, Akira...I had everybody else...but nobody could come close to taking her place...irreplaceable...and she’s gone...because of them.”

“....I’m sorry, Goro.”

What followed this was the longest, quiet period in any of their conversation. Never before has it felt so uncomfortable to sit in silence with Goro. He really doesn’t want to say anything but...he feels he has to...even if it’s just questions. 

“....is all of this really gonna make you feel better?” 

Goro’s head bobs from the ground and only stares in blank confusion hearing him ask this. 

“...Is killing me really gonna make you feel better?” Akira clarifies. 

The crow fairy shifted somewhat to curl on himself more, turning away immediately. 

“Is making my parents cry really gonna make you feel better?” 

The brunette’s flat line of a mouth wavers. 

“Are you gonna be happy when this is all over...?” 

Silence from him.

  
“....Well?” Akira demands from him, exasperated. 

“....it doesn’t matter anymore, your majesty.” Goro only states, venom in his voice as he turns away from him completely and gets up. Which caught Akira off guard as he only watched the large black wings spread out as Goro kept his back turned on him. “It doesn’t matter what you say or what I wish...because you'll be gone by sunset tomorrow...” 

After that sting to the heart, the black wings take off to the sky in a cloud of smoke and a crow emerges only to disappear into the foggy sky. Akira curled up into a ball on the ground after sliding forward off the rock pathetically, wrapping his arms around his legs and burying his chin in his knees. He kept asking himself every ‘why’ he had, even if Goro had answered it before. He could do nothing but let his conflicting feelings about the whole mess brew and boil over the pot. Gritting his teeth, Akira grabs a stone from the ground and throws it at the ground. He tries throwing, hitting, and screaming at anything. Only to go limp and wail like a newborn child as he hugs his legs tighter. 

“Akira!...Akira!”

Ann’s voice starts coming closer and closer to him but he doesn’t get up. 

“Akira! There you-!”

Her voice, clear as day now, stops. She found him first. Akira tries to bite his lips, stop the sobbing but his chest is still heaving and he’s still whimpering from under his arms. He faintly hears two sets of feet come up from behind and stop. Ryuji and Yusuke. Nothing but the chirping cicadas and a few cries slipping out of Akira could be heard. That’s the only thing till there’s hesitant steps towards him and they kneel down next to him. When warm arms wrap him in a hug, he knows who it is before they even speak. It’s Ann. 

“....I’m so sorry, Akira…” Her voice breaks as she hugs him tighter. It breaks him too as he continues to bawl his eyes out in the open, burying himself in the hug. He almost doesn’t notice Ryuji and Yusuke get closer. One set of feet kneel down and he feels a hand run up and down on the top of his back. That’s Ryuji. The blonde boy doesn’t say anything but Akira hears him sniff and inhale harshly. Then there’s the familiar ‘whoosh’ of wings and he feels the rain stop pouring down over him. Yusuke must’ve taken out his wings. To his surprise, there’s one more set of feet that come towards him. They’re so light though that he barely noticed it. Then a tiny head bumps into his legs before dragging it’s body across it...even Morgana followed him out here. 

There are no words between them for a long time. Soft crying and short breaths but soon it became nothing. However the quiet is broken by Yusuke, who was still keeping them dry while the rain was starting to build up. "...we should go inside. The storm is getting crueler."

Ann and Ryuji hum in agreement before helping him up slowly (after he gathered Morgana in his arms) and walking him back to the cottage with them. Probably feeling bad for the poor man who didn't grab a cloak when they ran after him and was getting soaked to keep them out of downpour, Ryuji took his own golden cloak off and tossed it over Yusuke's shoulders with the hood up before returning under the blue wings. He seemed confused by it, looking over to the blonde but he didn't say much on the matter. 

"Make sure to grab yours next time…" He only grumbles. Akira already had the red cloak to keep himself warm but he feels Ann share her rose pink cloak with him regardless, holding it by her fingers as she kept an arm around him. 

-

"I've been trying to warn you all this time, Goro...it's as you said, he'll die...regardless how you feel...it's best you forget about him." The red gleam of a ring's gem then fades.

"...." A huddled, black set of wings looms and watches the scene below. Silently from the top of a tree...and it closes in on itself tighter.


	10. Lie Through Your Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, I wrote some chapters ahead of time when I was stuck for past chapters so I’ll be updating a whole lot sooner than usual! Downside though is we’re still going to be in angst town for a while, like I predicted.  
> Speaking of, now that we all are dealing with the fallout...where will our boys go from here…? How is Akira holding up after yesterday…? Will Goro continue to follow Shido’s advice…? What tag did I lie about…?
> 
> Hope you enjoy finding out!
> 
> (P.S. I kind of left people guessing before but I think that I should mention now that I remember this and just in case you guys wanna know...the song in the music box that Akira owns, that Goro put into it while fixing it is a music box version of 'Once Upon A Dream'. The R3 music box version specifically...it happens to be a cute tune so I recommend giving it a listen.)

There’s no talking the next morning. The boy fairies were packing everything up, deciding that it was safe to finally use their magic after all these years. However they were still cautious with how they used it out of habit. Ann helped here and there but right now she was helping Akira with his cape, as he wouldn’t move to do it himself. He had dressed himself in his new clothes just fine but afterwards, he seemed to only slump onto his empty bed and didn't do anything more. It takes ten good minutes before the cardinal fairy decided that he needed help. 

While the blonde girl is kneeling to clip the cape together and the boy forces himself to sit up on his bed, only then she is able to see his face. (Due to his head facing down and his eyes being focused on his lap.) His coal eyes were glazed over and almost lifeless, no shine to be found. His mouth had no signs of his usual smile but it wasn’t in a frown either, it was simply a flat-line. Overall and in short, he looked completely defeated. She frowns seeing his sad state and gently pats his cheek to get him to look up at her, which he does and his eyes slowly move to meet hers; thankfully. 

“Come on, buddy...we’ve got to get going.” She urges him, gently before getting up from the floor and dusting herself off. “Is your stuff packed?” 

“Most of it...” He rasps as he finally gets up to go through his side table’s drawer. Reaching inside to grab the small stuff he had stored there. 

“Just some stuff he-” He pulls out a small wooden box out of it...the music box. Completely intact still, surprisingly. Probably still played well too...but that'd be a bad idea. Against his better judgment though, he still turns the crank some and it lets out a small chiming verse of the song before going quiet again. Akira gulped harshly and as he expected...felt regret playing those few notes of it. 

“..when did this get fixed? I thought Morgana broke it.” Ann asks, gently grabbing onto it (but not taking it away from him) and examining it all over with shock. 

“..I...I managed to save it. Whole other song but it works.” He answers, feigning a small smile. 

“Oh...good for you.” She cooed, giving him a soft smile before letting go of the small box and starts helping him gather the rest of it up. He hangs onto it as he looks around. Suddenly becoming dreadfully alarmed when he realizes something very important. 

“...Speaking of, where is Morgana..??” He asks Ann and her eyes widen, equally worried as the boy. 

“I thought he was in here with you.” She says, staring down at the floor in case the cat would come crawling out from under the bed or literally from any crevice in the room. He had an unfortunate talent at hiding really well after all. Though it seemed that he wasn't anywhere to be seen. 

“He was when I went to sleep...but he wasn’t there this morning so I figured he was downstairs with you.” He replies, his breaths growing ragged and panicked as his head darts left and right. Squeezing out his stress through the box in his hands. Ann places a hand over both of them, trying to make him release the painful looking grip he had on the thing. 

“Akira, Akira...” She cooed, grabbing his shoulder and turning him to her. He does and his grip lightens, only by a little. “Morgana is a crafty cat. I’m sure he’s just hiding somewhere...we are in a rush to leave but if we can’t find him..I promise and I **promise,** I’ll come back to find him. He may be older than he used to be but he can handle himself in the wilderness. He’s run off many times before but he always comes back, remember?” 

Akira still stares around the room in pure anxiety but he nods to her slowly. She had a point. Morgana could get into as much trouble as he could but he always got out of it, unscathed. At the end of the day, he comes back to scratch at the door and yowl to his heart's content till he is let in. “Y..Yeah.” 

“Right, now, let’s go.” She says before getting as much as she could into her arms (Akira doing the same) and then leading him downstairs to pack it all up. 

-

“ _Sniff. Sniff. Sniff….Sniff. Sniff. Sniff…..Sniff....Sniff...._ ”

…

_"Sniff…..Sniff....Sniff...."_

……

“Mreooooowww!!!” 

“GAH-!” Goro jumps up from his nap and winces as his head collides with a branch as the tree he rested on came close to the ground. He rubs his head slowly and his ruby eyes dart around...only to widen when they meet two bright blue cat eyes. Narrowed angrily at him with flat ears and his long tail swishing violently side to side behind him. Goro huffs and starts to get into his crow form to fly away but just as he gets up in the air, he feels his left wing be pulled back down to the ground. Yes, when he looks, Morgana has a firm paw stepping on it and it's claws digging into it. 

Goro caws at Morgana and tries to peck him but the cat only climbs on him more. Pinning and making sure he stays in place even as he tries to wiggle and squirm out from under him to fly away. No matter what he did though, the feline wouldn't give. Finally, after a long wrangle, the fairy gives up and turns himself back to his fairy form. Gently and respectfully as he can, tossing the black fur ball off. 

“I give, I give, what do you want, you mangy beast?!?!” Goro asks the feline that was previously clawing on him but he only gets loud yowling in response. Like he was trying to say something but...how the hell was he going to understand him like this?

“Oh, for the love of…” Goro growls, rolling his eyes before a red ball of smoke forms in his hand and he throws it in the direction of the cat. The poor thing yelps when it’s hit by it in the chest and tumbles in the ground, hacking turning to coughing as he gets back up. Once the fit is over, the cat stares up at him and glares even harder this time. It would usually sound like more yowling to any outsider but to Goro ears instead there is...

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!” Morgana's new, almost squeaky voice yells, all the fur on his body frizzing out into a small puffball and snarls at the crow fairy. 

“I couldn’t understand you, you were just spouting gibberish-” Goro begins to reason. 

“THAT DOESN'T EXCUSE YOU FOR NOT GIVING ME ANY WARNING AT LEAST!” The cat stops him midway, growling in frustration before shaking his head.

“I mean...I could say you attacked me too so you could call self defense too-” Goro barely starts before Morgana interrupts him again. 

“I wasn't even attacking you anymo-!" The cat stops himself with a long inhale and a short exhale. "Forget it! There’s no time for this! Akira’s isn’t well!” 

Goro froze at this and his expression is soft for only a moment before going right back to his scowling, already getting up to walk away. He's going slow enough for the tuxedo feline to follow though. He also responds to the cat's inquiry, although coldly. “And...why did you come to me about this?” 

The black and white ears sure enough come up next to him as trotting Morgana talks. “Because...you've spent day and night with each other...you two are friends.” 

"..." Goro flinches again, his wings closing in on him...then he groans softly, rolling his eyes as he starts to stomp faster. Feeling his nerves fraying and begging him to escape. To get as far as he can away from this cat as possible.

“Something happened in the forest yesterday...right? I heard him call for you and when me, Lady Ann, and the other two found him...he was crying. Did you bully him or something?" The black cat asks further and the brunette is really hoping for a way out of this conversation, gazing every which way as they walk through. Morgana humphs at his refusal to answer and only keeps pressing him.

"Listen...I don’t know what happened between you and him. Yes, I have no right to interrogate on personal issues from either of your ends...but he’s clearly unwell because of you and that is when it becomes my issue!” The cat scolds him. 

“ **Grrr….** ” Goro growls under his breath, his hands clenched into tight fists. 

“Now, I don’t care how you do it. Furthermore, I don't care about how your pride feels about it. Not even a little bit...the point is that it's your responsibility to come back now and fix what you-! Gahhhh!! Hey, put me down, put me-” The cat protests with writhing as Goro’s hand grabs him by the scruff of the neck, bringing him to meet his red eyes again. Uncomfortably up close this time though.

“Let’s be clear on something, cat…I am not your owner’s friend. I don’t care about him. I’ve never cared about him despite everything we've done together. He can get caught in a wasp nest for all I care. So I will do nothing to stop what’s going on with him. In fact...I. Will. Feel. Nothing. When he meets his end because he’s been nothing but a pest to me since the day he was born!” And with that, he roughly but safely drops the feline on the ground before he keeps walking away again. Hearing nothing back, Goro grins victoriously.

“...weren't you ever told it’s bad to lie through your teeth, crow?” But as always, it is short lived. 

Immediately, Goro stops and turns to glare back at the cat for the bizarre question. “... **what are you saying?** ” 

Morgana only starts to follow Goro again and glares back as he states it, loud and crystal clear. “I’m saying, you’re lying.” 

Goro shakes his head and laughs softly at the accusation, turning away from him. “Like hell, you’d know whether I'm lying or-”

“You can say you wanted his suffering from the very beginning. You can say you’ll feel nothing. You can say you hate him. You can say this all you want but the fact you're running away from this conversation with your wings tucked like a dog's tail **after** I accused you proves something very contradictory.” Morgana spits back. 

“Oh? And that would be?” Goro scoffs back at him but jumps a little when he realizes that the tuxedo furred cat had run up to face him directly. Only managing to make himself somewhat intimidating by standing on a small hill growing upwards on Goro’s left side while light shone over him from the space between two tall trees. 

“You feel guilt.” Goro’s expression almost cracks at those three words alone but he wouldn’t stand for this so he keeps trying to walk away...which is fine with Morgana as he’s still keeping up. 

“You feel awful for what you did. It must’ve been terrible too...judging from how horrified your face looked just now-” Goro starts to sprint away from him.

“That alone-!” The cat shouts and jumps right in front of his feet. “-proves you feel **something** for him!” 

"I...I..." Goro can only stare down at the cat, his eyes wide open. He tries to find his words and tries to protest against him but he finds no words coming through. There was a long path to run right behind him yet Goro still felt cornered like a rabbit being chased by wolves...and all because of this damn cat. It was humiliating and he hated it but everything he was saying is...

“Just admit it...you don’t hate Akira at all. Do you, crow?” The ball officially drops for Goro hearing this. He tried so hard to convince himself otherwise but hearing this question out loud and in the open. He...he can no longer deny it. He breathes in and out while his eyes squeezed close, sucking his bottom lip before he finally speaks...and it’s the absolute truth. 

“....No. I...I don’t hate him...in fact, he’s...he was the first person that I’ve considered to be a friend...after a very long time…” Goro clasps his hands together and squeezes them as he looks away sheepishly...and sadly. 

“And he...he is the closest friend that I've ever had...ever.” Friend was not the only definition he had for Akira. There were many more mushy words for who the boy was to him but it was as close to the full truth as he was willing to admit to the cat, who smiled with satisfaction at the brunette's honest answer.

“Then we’ve got to move fast!” The immediate charge to go back in the direction of the cottage startles the fairy and he follows but he still protests at the feline's eagerness. There was still so much that the feline didn't know.

“Wait but it’s not that-!” He begins to argue but he's cut off once again. 

“You care about him, right?” Morgana calls from over his shoulder. 

“Yeah but-” Again, cut off. 

“Then suck it up, make it right, and be there for him.” The cat simply says before speeding up his sprint. Goro hesitates for a moment but he eventually starts picking his pace too. There were many reasons for him to run despite all the factors working against his and Morgana's mission. Reasons he wouldn't be able to list at the top of his head or even admit still but one thing he knows for sure, at this moment...he was willing to do anything to see his friend and help him. Before the boy leaves for the castle. Before the boy becomes prince Akira. Before this curse ends his friend's life…

Screw any pride Goro has left in him. 

-

In the end, they didn't find Morgana and they had to leave without him. Ann did promise that she'd look for him when she could but Akira was still upset about his companion's absence nonetheless. If this day couldn't be any worse...actually, yeah. It could get worse. It **will** get worse from here on out and everyone around him (including himself) knows it. The raven sighs, adjusting his hood while the horses galloped in the background and trees passed by his vision. 

Ryuji was currently holding the reins to the carriage while Ann sat next him and Yusuke sat across from him. Rather cramped together due to all the supplies and Akira's belongings being packed in snugly but they could breathe at least. Other than Ryuji looking over his shoulder, it was still quiet as their morning. No conversation initiated still. Until Ann tugs on his cape to get his attention, urgently. He turned to her, eyebrows raised. 

"...I hate to bring this up but...before we get there…" Ann stumbled on her words, struggling with getting her voice out before she just shakes her head and pulls out one of the boxes from the large pile. One that he has never seen as he was sure that he'd remember such an ornate box. It was flat and simply but the designs around the seal were gorgeously done. Ann takes a key necklace out from her top and uses it to pop the thing open. 

"I guess you can consider this a gift from your dad…" She only says as she shows what's inside. There was only a golden crown. Perfectly sized for his head. Not too heavy or thin. Jeweled with one red gem to rest above his forehead. It looked brand new, untouched. Like the smith that made it didn't even touch it...like they conjured it from air. 

"Hmmm…" Akira can only find himself humming, his eyes gazing over the priceless accessory nervously. It really was a pretty crown but with recent events...it makes him a bit conflicted about putting it on, to say the least. 

"...you don't have to wear it if you don't want to...I'm sure he just wanted to give it to you because he feels bad about not being able to give you anything for the last eighteen years...and that you'd need one eventually…" Ann assures him, already ready to close the box. Still, Akira hesitates to say no. He still felt bad at rejecting such an expensive gift. But still…

"He's your dad, Akira...if he cares about ya' at all, he will care about your comfort more than some flimsy piece of metal." Ryuji blurts from the front of the cart. 

"Well, I wouldn't say it's flimsy-" Yusuke starts to comment. 

"Yusuke. Read the carriage." Ann warns him softly with a sigh and the barest hint of a laugh slips through Akira's lips for the first time since he woke up. She shakes her head before turning to him for an answer. He thinks about it for a moment then he shakes his head. 

"I don't feel like putting it on, right now." He says affirmatively.

The girl nods respectfully before locking it up again and puts it away but she does hand him the key necklace that she used. "In case you need to get at it again." 

"Thank you, Ann." Akira says, lifting off his hood to put the key's string over his neck like the girl fairy did. She simply nods at that, smiling some. They both jolt at that very moment as the blonde at the front brings the horses in a bit, slowing the carriage down. 

"Get ready, everyone...castle's coming up ahead real quick." Ryuji announces and soon they reach a path. Further down was a surrounding town, a drawbridge in the middle, and the stone castle standing tall from above. Akira watched over this place from the hills many times before but to see it this up close was absolutely dizzying. It was so huge and menacing that he barely noticed the eyes of the villagers as they came through. 

"Get back!" Some guards shouted as they moved the citizens away from the drawbridge while others followed the four on the drawbridge to the castle gate, making sure that nobody but them got in. Slowly, the drawbridge is brought back up once the carriage is in. Akira is barely paying attention to the soldiers helping with bringing the luggage as his eyes were still focused on the castle but Ann shakes him out of it and turns to her. 

"Ready to head inside?" She asks him, worriedly. He eyes up the castle one more time before gently nodding his head. 

"Better now than never, I suppose." He declares and with that, she follows him off of the carriage. The two boy fairies snap their fingers and they are back to their extravagant fairy forms. Yusuke grows out his blue bird wings while Ryuji grows golden griffon vulture ones. Ann follows suit and female cardinal wings sprout out from her back. Not only that but they were in more formal clothes compared to the rags that he's grown used to over the years. Although, the clothes looked somewhat casual as well. More moveable than the average ballgowns and tights, that's for sure. 

"Sorry again...for keeping all this from you, Akira...we had to keep our magic concealed and...I'm just so sorry." Ann apologizes guiltily when she notices Akira staring at all of their wings. He shakes his head and gently pats her shoulder. 

"You don't have to apologize...You were just trying to keep me safe, Ann...it's okay..." The raven reassures her with a small smile and she returns it with an even brighter smile. She holds out her arm to him and the boy chuckles before linking it with his own arm. "Well...we haven't done something like this since I turned ten." 

"I'm feeling sentimental today, shush." Ann scolds him and he chuckles again but he concedes, leaving her be. He really didn't want to ruin it for her. Besides, he appreciated the warm nostalgia of just this action alone too. The blonde girl turned to the other guys and called out to them. "Are you two ready?"

Ryuji gives her one thumbs up and Yusuke nods. Both of them then come up to gather around Akira, Ryuji giving him a pat on the back. The prince inhales to calm his nerves before nodding to Ann too. She takes a breath of her own before she starts leading them inside the castle. 

-

"Here we are!" Morgana cheers as he comes up to the cottage, grinning proudly. A slightly disgruntled Goro following up behind him but he's relieved to hear this. It was far into the day by the time that they got there and he already felt tired from all the walking. Not because his legs were worn but it was tedious to travel so slow. All because a certain someone was afraid of the idea of flying. (Morgana) The cat starts to scratch and yowl at the door to get the attention of everyone inside...assuming there were people inside. However, it seemed that nobody was answering. In which the tuxedo fur ball's eyes narrow angrily at, offended. 

"What the heck? They should be answering by now...why aren't they getting up? Lady Ann would've at least heard me!" Morgana questioned before he started to yowl even louder and scratch even more at the door. "Lady Annnnnn~!" 

"..." The cat gets nothing back. Goro squints at the unusual silence, his eyes falling on the window out of curiosity. He found it was fairly darker than usual and there was no noisy clanging. There weren't even plates to clang really...everything in the kitchen seemed to be gone except for the cabinets and tables. 

"Hmm…" Goro flew up to Akira's room to further investigate. He had a feeling for what's going on but he had to make sure. Sure enough, what was Akira's room, is also completely empty. Excluding the blanket-less bed in the corner and some dressers. Maybe dust bunnies too. He sighs, rushing right back to the cat still meowing endlessly at the lifeless house. 

"Hey, quit the yapping. They aren't even home. They must've moved out while you were away." Goro tells him and Morgana stops midway through his shouting to turn to him, glaring and puffing out his fur. 

"Wait, they left without me?!" He whines and the fairy simply shrugs, expression still unamused. 

"You went to get me, they probably were in a rush and didn't have the time to search for you." The brunette explains. The black ears flatten a bit, annoyed to be left behind so casually but huffs and lifts his claws from the wooden door. 

"Okay...but why would they need to move anyway? Where would they even be going?" Morgana questions Goro and the crow fairy's eyes widen. 

"The castle…they are already heading to the castle..." He only mumbles to himself which earns the confused tilting head of Morgana. 

"Huh?" The cat questions him, completely befuddled by the rambling. 

"The castle uphill...the king's castle…" The brunette explains, pointing in the very direction of the palace. "That's the castle where Akira is going to meet his father. 

' _The castle where all the spinning wheels are still getting burnt…_ ' He adds in his head, internally horrified immediately by the thought. The cat considers this thoughtfully, his tail thumping gently on the ground. 

"...alright, let's get moving then." Morgana urges Goro as he starts trotting in that direction. He...he's not seriously thinking of walking there too, is he? Yet, he sees that the tuxedo furball doesn't turn back once. He doesn't even stop to see if Goro is actually following him! The crow facepalms himself and groans loudly. 

' _We are not going to get there in time at_ **_this_ ** _rate!!!_ ' He screamed internally while he pulled his hands down his face in pure annoyance. He couldn't leave things like this. He had to do something or Akira would certainly be doomed. So…

"....H-Hey! What-What are you doing now?!?!" Terrified Morgana is picked up from his armpits before being settled more comfortably into Goro's hold. The brunette starts stomping his way towards the nearest cliff and big blue eyes bulge out in even more fear. He starts clawing at the fairy, trying to squirm his way out. "Oh hell no!!! You are not doing what I think you're doing-!" 

"We are not going to make any progress if we stay on ground and we can't afford to lose time. Just try to relax...close your eyes if you need to." Goro intructs as he spreads his wings out, getting ready to take off. The words have no effect on the panicking cat in his arms. 

"W-What if you drop me?!?!" Morgana shouts, trying to pry himself away still. Goro grunts and tucks the feline back into a secure hold. 

"You **will** fall for sure if you keep squirming like that! We don't have time! Now, prepare yourself and...refrain from throwing up if possible please." Goro says before he starts flapping his wings and running to the cliff. 

"Nonononono! Wait! Sto-AAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!!!" The cat screams, his paws digging hard into Goro's sleeve as he makes a dive into the air and takes flight. There's small, rapid fire hyperventilating from the poor thing but he thankfully eases up with time. "Hah...hah...Haha...guess this isn't...THAT bad. Actually...it's kind of nice~ Wind in my fur and all~" 

Goro only rolls his eyes at the feline's cooing as he focuses both on flying without bumping into anything and keeping his hold on the pet. "Great, good to hear. While you're watching the scenery, maybe keep an eye out for the castle if it comes up? Think you can do that?" 

"Of course, I'll keep a sharp eye out!" Morgana states, immediately getting to searching the landscape. The fairy sighs in relief as their sky ride really starts. 

-

Akira waits in a row with the three fairies, watching the castle's main staircase with the red rug in the halls of the living area that was built behind the throne room. Where there were meals being served...the royal beds resting every monarch in the household's heads...pretty much everything like that. He fumbled with his fingers and cape, nervously as the silence stretched on. His eyes had eventually dropped to the ground. Thankfully though...he doesn't have to wait long.

"The king has arrived!" Akira's eyes darted back up to the stairs. There was a man with one hand on his hip and another on the railing. Seeing the rather expensive robes of black and trimmed with gold, the intricately detailed crown of gold on top of his head, and the crest on his chest...he knew that the man was the king. His appearance looked about the same as the description that was provided by Ann. Tall, pale, goatee on his chin, round glasses and his hair tied into a small ponytail. However, his jet black hair seemed to have grown grey hairs and his face looked more worn. It was a natural thing for someone his age but...he couldn't help but feel like this whole ordeal along with other things played part in it.

It was especially shown in the monarch’s eyes. The minute the dark ringed eyes fell on him, he saw so. But...seeing the man's eyes is what also confirmed it for him that the king was indeed his father. King Sojiro's eyes were a lighter shade from what he could tell but it was the same color of grey that he had in his own. Exactly the same color of grey as Akira. Not to mention, Ann had mentioned him having similar eyesight problems to his. The glasses he wore made that all the more obvious. After that, every other trait in his appearance seemed to gain some valid resemblance to him. How much in common did he have with his mother, he wondered. He had so many shared genetics with his father alone, where did hers come into play? 

“...” The king inhales before he slowly starts to make his way down, one step at a time and his eyes watching the grand stairs to make sure he didn’t misstep and trip over himself. Akira and the fairies watch as he makes the entrance. The boy waits with bated breath while Ryuji was sucking air through his teeth as quietly as he could. Ann and Yusuke continued to stay as still and silent as ever. When he finally gets down, Sojiro finally exhales and addresses him. Lifting his head from the ground and staring right into the prince’s coal eyes. 

"Welcome home...Akira." He greets him in a low-toned voice.


	11. Sunset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the somewhat sucky of an introduction for Futaba but...you know. I thought it was more important for the plot to focus on Sojiro and Akira's bonding time. Plus, I'm looking at the clock and...I think it's curse time!
> 
> Hope you enjoy! 😁

To say the first hours of meeting his own dad for the first time was awkward is huge understatement in Akira's eyes. Neither of them seemed to know what to say. Even as he's given the grand tour of the castle and despite the fairies leaving them alone to do so, there was zero conversation between the two of them. That is until they are walking up the tower to the bedrooms. That's when he spots a large painting of a woman along the long walls. 

The elegantly dressed woman had short black hair and dark eyes. Her face was fair and rounder than the king. Much like his own smooth face. To her left was the king himself, who was not only younger but...smiling. He looked so much happier in this portrait. He's startled when his father noticed him stopping and joining him. Although, mournfully. 

"...is...was she my mother?" Akira asks hesitantly. Sojiro bites his bottom lip and sighs shakily but he nods slowly. The raven finds himself gulping down a harsh lump at the confirmation and his eyes getting a little misty. While his father was here and alive to meet him, his mother died long before he could meet her...and knowing that kind of hurt. He could only imagine how he'd feel if he knew her. The drastic change in expression now compared to this painting said enough about how Sojiro felt when he lost her. "...I'm sorry."

Sojiro seemed a bit stunned at the sudden apology but he quickly composed himself and shaked his head. 

"Come on...don't say sorry. Unless you have the power to control misfortune, don't say sorry." He tried to joke but he still clearly sounds distraught by the trauma. Though Akira still humors him with a small, sad laugh of his own. 

"...is...is my sister still around? I...was told about her before I got here..." Akira then asks, quietly but more confidently this time. The king scratches at his goatee at the question before nodding affirmatively. The raven perks up and turns to him at this. "What's her name? What is she like?"

"...Futaba. Her name is Futaba." Sojiro answers, a smile starting to creep up on him. "She has dark eyes like her mom...and ginger hair from...I believe it was your mother's great grandmother. That color often comes out from long ancestors or nothing. Not that I'm complaining...I think it suits her. Personality...on the surface, she's very shy. Which is why she hasn't attended most parties but if she's comfortable...she can be a bit of a goofball...believe me or not."

Akira chuckles softly before looking around curiously, narrowing when he doesn't see any sight of such a girl. "Where is she?"

Sojiro tenses right back up at that question, expression back to frown town. "...she is in her room...she...she figured out a while ago that you and her mom died due to childbirth complications after she was born...since then, she's had this habit of locking herself up...I think...I think she thinks it's her fault." 

Akira grimaces at this, staring down the halls where the multiple bedrooms were. "...but it's not her fault though." He says. 

"I know that...I've been trying to convince her that since...and I haven't had luck yet." The king sighs, crossing his arms and staring attintentively at one door at the end. Must've been the princess's room. "We've just been...unlucky. That's all there is to it..." 

Unlucky and misfortunate, huh? Yes, it would seem that way...but...what Goro told him was haunting Akira's head since coming here. That his own father was the murderer of the brunette's mother. Despite everything, he still believed the fairy but seeing this man so out of place after everything, he didn't know which to believe. Was his father really that bad…?

"...Soji-I mean...dad?" He questions the older man, who is immediately snapped out of it and turns to him. Seemingly standing taller after being called 'dad'.

"Yes, Akira?" He asks him, curiously. 

"Do you...Do you ever wonder...why the fairy did what he did?" He questions his father, nervously fumbling with his pale fingers. Sojiro blinks and his brows furrow, confused. 

"Why the fairy cursed you, you mean?" He inquires and the raven nods. Sojiro's face scrunched up in thought as he scratched his head and paced along the floor some. He truly looked stumped by this, it felt like he would take hours to reply to him. Regardless, Akira waits patiently for an answer. 

"I don't see why anyone would...you were just a baby...you had barely lived half of a year...so why anyone, fairy or not, wanted to hurt you is beyond me…" The man concludes, visibly flabbergasted by the idea of anyone hurting a child for any reason. Akira sucks on his bottom lip at this, trying to think of how to get more out of him when the king adds on. "Then again...people just tend to do irrational things when they are angry...and he was angry. For what reason...if there was a reason...I don't know...but he was angry." 

"He was angry…" Akira mumbled softly as he thought back to the fight he had with the crow fairy. How his friend flipped on him in a flash...the way his red eyes glared at him…and he immediately tries to shun those memories out, gently bumping the side of his head with his own fist. Which seemed to catch his father's eye. 

"Akira, are you okay?" The prince flinches but shakes his head insistently. Sojiro's eyes squint worriedly at him, looking him up and down. Likely to see if he was losing balance. To see if he was sick or... **something**. "...You sure?"

"Y-Yeah...just feeling a bit out of it." Akira tries to reason, feigning one bright smile. However, the king doesn't buy it and frowns. Just as he's about to ask further though, they are interrupted by one of the servants. 

"Y-Your majesty!" The servant yells as he runs over, winded and in a hurry from the looks of it. Sojiro groaned but turned to the worker. 

"What is it?" He almost growls. He seemed close to punching the sturdy wall, the bumbling servant, or any of the decorative vases. He clearly didn't appreciate having their chat interrupted. However, he keeps his hands to himself as the worker caught his breath before telling them the news...the bad news. 

"Sunset is closing in...and we haven't figured out how to deal with the rest of the spinning wheels yet." Akira's heart plummets hearing that along with the furious expression his dad had, the hostile replaced by horror. 

"...what are you doing here, then? Lock it up!" The king scolded him and the servant shrieked 'Yes, your majesty!' before running off again. After that, Akira is pulled by his arm and dragged into one of the many bedrooms. The thing that stood out most being a mural of him, he guessed this was supposed to be his room. Sojiro let go of him before stomping over to the entrance then he pointed at the prince, his voice authoritative but it had a little less bark than before. "Akira, stay in here till I say you can leave. Do you understand?"

He wants to argue simply because of how sudden the lock down but...what else could they do? It would just be stupid levels of dangerous to let him wander so- "Y-Yes."

With that, the king shuts the door and the raven hears the door be locked from the outside. He gazes over the room, really taking in the interior, humming curiously. "Hmm…" 

While the walls were made up of stacked stones, the floor was a singular type of rock and completely smoothed over but both were very similar in color. At his right (along with the mural) was a canopy bed, made of cherry wood and robed in sheets of red rimmed with gold. On each side were night stands carved out of the same wood with a large candle on top one of them. The only other storage in this room was a wardrobe away from the mural. On his left, yet another thing that had to be whittled. A large table (a water pitcher rested on top and a red rug underneath) with several chairs. Then there was the cobblestone fireplace which was built at the very end of the room in a corner on the opposite side of the door. Finishing touch? Two large windows with golden drapes right next to that fireplace. 

' _Could probably use some decorating still...but it's otherwise very nice._ ' Akira compliments, thoughtfully while he was pacing among it absentmindedly. 

Walking up to one of the windows and pulling the curtains open, Akira gazes at the high view. Clouds floated in the vast sky and they both were slowly turning warm-colored as the day made it's departure. Several castle towers stood tall above him and the great stone bridge to the castle surrounded by the village way down below. Further out in the landscape was the same trees he grew up knowing very well. Just one look at that one part of scenery, he knew what was buried within it. The trail, the cliff, the cottage, the stream...the wall, and the marsh. His body slumps with a somber groan, laying against his left on the windowsill and gently banging the side of his head on it before he forces himself to turn away. 

"...how do you keep making things worse for yourself, Akira…?" Akira mumbles. Goro left him without a second thought when the raven found him out...so why does he have the strong feeling that...things aren't quite over? What else could he have said that would've made the fairy stay? What else was there left to say from him or Goro? Whether there was or not, the fairy was certainly not coming back to tell him from what he could tell. He doesn't remember the princes ever having to wait on anyone in any of his childhood story books, much less someone they probably should hate back mutually...so why is he spending his doom day moping and hoping for the brunette's return every chance that he gets? He sighs, running his hands over his eyes. Messing up his bangs and making his glasses' frame go crooked over his digits before slowly bringing them back down. 

"....." His eyes widened when in his sulking, he noticed something weird about his hands. He could see the veins in them. Not because they were bulging with blood flow...but they were glowing. For only a few seconds, the veins glowed bright red before going to a dull reddish pink and repeat. It seemed to only be sprouting in his wrist but he hisses in pain as he watches it spread down his arm and up his palm. The raven winces with his eyes shut tight, cradling it closer as it slowly starts to burn him. He imagines that this gradual torture is no different than what cows feel if their owner is cruel enough to brand them. "Ghh…!"

Akira quickly rushes to the water pitcher on the table and pouring the cool liquid over his wrist, having some small hope it would ease the pain but it didn't help the intense heat one bit. It only grew. It grew to the point of being truly unbearable as it continued to branch across his skin. It was becoming especially harsh on his fingertips as clenching them into a fist was too painful now. He had to keep them outstretched. 

"Damn it...keh...gah….!" He curses as another jolt of pain rushed in his arm as it glowed. Terrified and alone, he debates shouting for someone. Anyone but…

' _I don't want to worry them more…'_ He thinks, biting his bottom lip. A whimper slips out of him as he's burned again. Oddly though, it seemed to be becoming weaker over time (which he was confused though relieved) but his eyesight was starting to distort drastically. The room was blurring together. One part of the castle room wall stands out brightly through it though. On the mural, three of the small colorful chips were glowing. He hesitates for a moment but he gives into his curiosity, walking up to the mural and pressing three of his fingers down on them. The three stone cave under the pressure too easily and seems to lock in place. Then there's a quiet rumble and a portion of the stone wall parted into a large passage. Inside was a long, downward staircase. After that, he remembers nothing but his steps going down and the stone wall closing behind him as his mind goes blank, a warm red washing over his vision. 

-

"Mrs. Ann?"

Ann turns from observing one of the grand sized paintings in the palace to see one of the maids with a neatly prepared dish in her hands. Along with a key and a long note with the king's signature at the bottom. Though, it said 'Dad' instead of 'Sojiro'. 

"The king requested you give the prince his meal to him, if it's not too much trouble." She says, raising the tray up to the blonde. 

"I-I'd be delighted but...it looks like something he wanted to give to Akira himself, is that really okay?" She asks, taking the tray from her. 

"...even after conversing, I believe he's still feeling guilt from abandoning him, Mrs. Ann. Not to mention-" The maid gasps and stops herself dramatically by covering her mouth but the fairy knew what words she was going to say...the curse. Ann frowns for a moment at this but then smiles at the maid. 

"...I know it's probably not in my place to say but...tell him I said that he should just spend all he can with his son...especially now...but I will still make sure that Akira gets his food." 

The maid bows to her. "I will, Mrs. Ann. You'll find the prince in his room. The door is locked so make sure to use the key to get in." She states before walking off. The cardinal fairy's eyebrows throw themselves up hearing the last bit but relaxes when she glances to the sunset through one of the windows. So with the longest sigh, Ann starts to make her way back up to the prince's room with the rectangular plate. 

' _If this curse gets Akira...the only one he's gonna have left is his daughter...so...maybe I can understand him wanting to try to distance himself just a little...but in the end, if he still cares then isn't this just gonna hurt him more? Why not let everyone take care of the wheels while he stays with him?_ '

She's reaching the bedroom hall as she thinks. 

' _I mean...I went into this just wanting to do the right thing and help someone else out of danger but...Akira just grows on people without even trying to...he's...he's become a limb to me, Ryuji, and Yusuke...family by soul...knowing he's destined for this stupid curse…I...dear lord, it's gonna be hard if...if we have to say goodbye…'_

Ann shakes her head at this, trying to get that thought out of her head before she walks up to Akira's room. She raises a fist and gently knocks on the door. She was told to use the key to enter the room but she made a habit of not invading the boy's privacy. Completely out of respect for his space. 

"Akira, it's me! I brought you food, can I come in?" Ann asks cheerily. She doesn't think much when he doesn't answer at first. He was probably in the middle of a nap and needed time to get up, just like he would in the cottage. However, it became clear soon that the prince was not going to answer her as it stayed completely silent from behind the door. Not even the shift of bedsheets. Her eyebrows furrow as she tries knocking harder and more insistently on the wood. 

"Akira, it's Ann! Can you answer me, please?" She asks, worriedly. There's nothing. At this worrying note, Ann immediately reaches for the key that the king had left her on the tray and unlocks the door. Practically slamming it open as she busts in the royal bedroom. To her horror, she doesn't find the prince anywhere to be found. The hysteric fairy's eyes widen and she drops the tray to pull at the hair at the top of her head, stomping every inch of the room to find him. Under the bed. In the wardrobe. Even out the window that had it's drapes pulled open but there was no sign of the raven anywhere.

"Nonononono, come on, Akira! Where are you?! Akira!!!" She screams, alerting anyone who was near, if the clash of the tray didn't do the job well enough already. That only being princess Futaba (who only peeked through the crack of her bedroom door for the first time in awhile) and the two other boy fairies coming up the stairs after her, who start to charge hearing their friend distressed and calling out for the prince. 

"Hey, hey, Ann, What's-" Before Ryuji can finish asking, on the brink of being tear faced Ann is already standing at the door frame. Her breathing was shaky. 

"Akira's missing!" She cried and both their eyes widened. 

"Wait, no way, where the hell did he go?!" Ryuji asked, already panicking as well. Ann only shakes as she tries to explain. 

"I-I don't know! I-I've looked all over his room because he's supposed to be there but...but he's just not anywhere!" She shouts, the dark auburn of her eye makeup travelling down her cheeks as she trembles and whines worriedly. 

"Troubling but we can't panic now...we have to find him." Yusuke states bluntly, a serious expression that used to be only exclusive to painting till now. Ryuji nods and shakes Ann's shoulders. 

"He's right, Ann, come on. We have to find him before…" Ryuji bites his lip mid-sentence and she lets out a small sob at the implication of it. "...I mean, even I can tell it's the only thing that makes sense out of this….do you know what routes he could've taken to get to where they're storing the wheels?" 

Ann thinks for a moment then starts to point as she directs, "I-I believe there's one through the palace kitchen, one near where the clothes get cleaned, and one right past the blacksmith's shop."

Ryuji nods at this. "Ok, let's split up. He had to have gone through one of 'em!" 

And with that, they each ran in one of the three directions. Hurried to stop the prince. The princess closes her door and bites down at her thumb as she starts pacing. Long and simple white dress swaying with her leg movement and her shoes clacking against the floor. Even now, she couldn't do anything but stay chained to her room...and for once, it frustrated her. 

' _I may not know him well but...h-he's my brother, right? I have to do something!...but what? She said they all go down but...how would he go down them in the first place._ **_Without_ ** _being spotted first...?'_ She rattles her brain to figure out what to do, humming to herself. Then she gasps, eyes wide in realization as she looks upon the mural of her on the wall in her room. 

' _Wait! Dad said there's an escape passage in all of our rooms in all of our murals incase of enemy attacks...if he didn't go through the door, he must've found it somehow! There's no other way he could've gone!'_ She beams in her head as she runs up to her wall and presses her fingers on three patches of it. It slowly opens a passage to a dark and dreary staircase going down. She stops as she slowly takes one step, about to bring her foot back but she huffs with determination. Which was all the pump she needed to get herself to start rushing down them. 

-

"I can see it, Crow! It's right there! The castle's right there!" Morgana shouts with a smile, wiggling wildly which causes Goro to struggle to hold onto the feline. 

"I do too but stop all the squirming or you’re gonna be vulture food!" Goro scolds with furrowed brows as his wings start to pick up speed and fly faster across the sky. He glances at the sun for a moment, expression alarmed seeing the sunset approaching but he shakes his head. Focusing on hurrying to the castle. That's when he hears him again…voice crackling through his ring.

"Goro, what are you doing?!" 

"What does it look like, Shido?" Goro asks bluntly to the elder fairy, eyes still on the trees that he narrowly misses. 

"It's already over, you won't make it to the boy in time and even then, you won't break the curse before he gives into it!" 

Goro's eyes squint in a mixture of anger and guilt at this, diving up when another tree comes from nowhere in front of them. 

"It's hopeless, Goro!...So why are you going back?!" 

Goro tugs Morgana closer as a stray hawk tries to dive and take him from the crow fairy's hands. 

"This doesn't make any sense, I mean...what his parents did, does it mean anything to you anymore?!" 

"...it doesn't." 

Shido is heard sputtering from the other side before shouting, "What?!" 

"Yes, I am still mad at what they did. Immensely...but...he's not my enemy, Shido. He never was...he had nothing to do with this, he should've stayed out of it from the very beginning." He barks coldly. His mentor does not sound happy with this response as he growls in frustration and his voice is absolutely fuming in the next sentence he speaks. 

"...And what about me, Goro?!?! Huh?! What about what they did to me?!?!" 

Goro sighs, fumbling with his fingers and sliding the ring off his finger. Pinching it between his pointer and thumb. "Well...that's your problem to deal with but I'm done with all of this revenge bullcrap so...I'm really sorry but you won't be hearing from me again."

"G-Goro, don't! Think about what you're doing for a second…!" He warns in a bark. 

"...goodbye, Shido." 

"Gor-!"

Without another word, Goro crushes his hands together on the ring and it breaks with a crunch. Red glowing between his digits before he lets go, the ring discentagrating as a cloud of maroon dust. Wind carrying it and breaking it apart till it was completely out of sight and couldn't be seen anymore. 

"Who was that?" Morgana asks, bewildered by the whole exchange he heard between the ring and the crow fairy. 

"...someone I probably should've stopped talking with a long time ago but that's not important." Goro comments nonchalantly as he keeps gliding without problems. 

"...Akira is..." He adds, eyes squinting at the castle with determination.

-

Futaba hyperventilates as she looks for another passage to go through. Though she finds herself having trouble figuring out where to go once she came to a cross section. Two different paths that led to two different parts. 

' _Dad said left was near the cleaning room and the right leads to where the weapons are made but that doesn't matter...it matters where_ **_he's_ ** _planning on going...both are near the spindles so it could be either of them...if I could just get one clue…'_

_Step….step….step…_

And through a miracle, she manages to catch footsteps from one side. The one leading to the blacksmith's place. 

"There!" She gasps as she starts running right, stopping just a minute to take off her footwear so she could run better before taking off again. Holding her shoes in her hands, ginger hair and the tail end of her dress swishing behind her. 

-

As they rushed down the halls, Ryuji and Yusuke hurriedly passed by the workers of each of their respective areas. The blonde boy with the cooks and Yusuke with the cleaning maids. Ann has yet to reach the black smith however. The way there was greatly longer than she had anticipated. It was just stairs! She yelps when she suddenly bumps into a tall figure during her run. Her bright blue eyes widen when she recognizes it immediately as the king himself. His eyes examined over her wrecked state with wariness and concern. 

"S-Sorry, your highness! I-!" She starts, her feet scooting on their own, threatening to flee from the gaze of the monarch. He stops her though. 

"Mrs. Ann, are you alright? You look shaken, what's happened?" He asks her, patiently. She bites her lip, brows furrowing deeply. 

"I-I-I…" Her words fail her badly and she tries to make a dash for it but Sojiro's arm is in the way. His light grey eyes narrow down at her.

"Ann, what's going on?" He asks again, more sternly. She gulps, scared of telling him the grim news but she has no way around this and she couldn't allow it to halt the pursuit any longer. Every second passing could be Akira's last breath. 

"...Akira has escaped, sire." She informs him and his face goes pale. Without another word, he starts running with her to the smith's room. 

-

Akira's eyes are glazed over as he walks down the tunnel, watching and following the red light lighting the walls next to him till the end. Where there is a door. He walks up to the door, absent minded as he works it open and walks out it without closing. Into yet another hall but this one seemed more squeezed in and shorter. He barely takes in the sound of the clanging of metal as he walks by one door frame. Though he doesn't look at what's inside, turning away as his bleak eyes keep following the light. 

Only to lead to another door. This time, the bright runes turn it on its own and it opens up for him. Unable to think and reason out of it, he walks in. Inside were millions upon millions of spinning wheels. All stacked up on one another in a pile. Perfect for a bonfire. Some were charred while some were still intact. He walks among them, taking his time staring up at each one but he turns away immediately after. That is until he spots one, deeply buried...but the needle was out in the open. Within his reach.

-

Futaba came running out from the digeon door, passing by the smith's shop. So fast in fact that she was running toward one of the sweating men at work. The man watches her come through with wide eyes, holding a large piece of metal meant to be turned to some kind of war mechanism in his arms. 

"Princess, is that you? Why have you come out of your-woaaaah!!" He yelps, lifting the hunk of metal so she didn't run into it and almost falls over in doing so. She's heaving at this point and she makes one dash for the knob of the spinning wheel room. Good thing that she still remembered which room it was after all the time she spent in solitary. She's frankly thankful that she remembers any of the castle despite locking herself in her room. Her eyes go wide though, realizing that it's already open when it should've been locked tight for obvious security reasons. 

' _Oh no…_ ' She runs inside only to freeze in fear at what she sees. Her older brother was standing by one of the many spinning wheel piles, one needle sticking out from it. His hand's veins were glowing bright red as he's bringing his pointer finger over the sharp point of it. Ready to prick the fragile skin there. She immediately starts running for him again, reaching out for him and desperately crying out. 

" **Stop!** " 

His body jolts as his finger tip presses down on the needle. He pulls it back as fast and stares down at it, backing up slowly as if he was shocked by his own actions. Like he didn't realize that he was doing it. The bright red light on his hand fades as he's falling backwards. Futaba barely managed to catch him before he fell but when she looked him over, she knew that she failed to stop him in time. Crimson blood popped out of his finger and ran down his hand in a thin trail. She catches his terrified eyes rolling back slowly just as they close shut and his body goes limp....and she couldn't wake him no matter how much she shakes him. She's startled out of her aggressive shaking when she hears a gasp. 

By the door is the same three fairies from before...and dad. He isn't crying but his expression can only be described as broken. The three fairies looked just as heartbroken. The tall one bites his lip as he stares at the ground, expression showing signs he was trying to hold back from crying. The blonde boy backs away from the door slowly before dashing off. After that, there was loud banging, hitting on the walls, and enraged screaming. The girl is the only one who comes in and rushes to the boy's side. Her eyes were so smeared of make-up and so red from crying that anybody would think she was out of tears...but seeing that the boy won't wake up when she gently pats him on his cheek, she wails from behind her hand and she's bawling out more tears. 

"I-I-I-I-I'm s-s-sorry...I-I-I-I t-tried to s-s-stop h-him…b-b-b-b-but…" Futaba tries to console but the girl fairy curls in on herself, burying her face deeper into her palms. The princess can’t help but join in as she looks down at her brother. The one she barely got to know but if she could guess anything about him...if the three fairies cared this much about him, the loss of him is more than deserving of the princess joining the mourning. 

-

Goro pants heavily, almost out of breath as he finally comes up to the bridge of the castle. The stone of it turning to an orange to match the sky. A cold wave hits him at the sight and he dares with wide eyes to look over to the sun...and finds it long out of view. All the air leaves him in an instant and his jaw drops. 

' _It’s...It’s too late...?I’m too late to save Akira...?_ ' He asks himself with a frantic misery all too familiar and close to home for him, almost dropping Morgana in his pain-stricken state. The cat yowls in fright as the brunette scrambles to hold onto him again before glaring up at the crow fairy. 

“Hey, be careful, what’s wrong with you?! Why’d you almost drop me?!” Goro doesn’t answer still though as he stares back at the dark violet horizon again. The tuxedo’s ears perk up at this and look at him, confused. 

“Hey, what’s going on, Crow?” He asks. Goro blinks blankly at the ground down below, still in shock and unable to answer back. His whole body was shaking with grief but he moves faster than ever towards the tower once he’s out of it. Goro squeezes his eyes closed as he feels them start to burn, trying to keep his vision clear and without pesky tears in the way. 

‘ _N-No, it can’t be too late…!_ ’ 

The fairy hopes all he can, although he knows for a fact, it **was** too late….the curse had won. Akira was asleep.


	12. His First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have to say that this is probably my favorite chapter. I'm just honestly really proud of how I wrote it overall so I hope you enjoy it too! Both the sweetness and the horrifying!

Once everyone had cried themselves out enough, the three fairies helped bring collapsed Akira back to his chambers to rest his body down and set his glasses aside. The cooks would try all they can but it is hard to properly nourish someone when they aren't awake to chew and swallow their food. When the prince eventually sleeps for too long, a coffin would need to be prepared for him. The king wanted to keep him around still though so...for now, he'd sleep peacefully in his bedroom. Silk sheets of red pulled over his legs and his pale arms crossed over his chest, rising and falling as he breathed shallowly. 

Yusuke had conjured up some flowers and set them in the small vase on the prince's nightstand with his black-framed glasses. Ann helped Ryuji with making sure that the boy was at least comfortable in his forever slumber before the blonde haired girl was looking back over to the oldest monarch. He just stared down at his son with the same gaze as before, brimmed with an unbearable emptiness and numbness. She hesitates as she walks over to him, placing a guilt-ridden hand on his shoulder. "Y-Your highness...I'm so sorry...I...I wish I could have done more for him but...but…" She starts to apologize but Sojiro shoves her sympathetic words away with a weak waving gesture, gulping loudly and placing his hand back down before sighing. 

"Don't be...you tried your best…" He replied quietly while his grip tightened on the edge of the bed. Futaba stands next to the king with brows furrowing deeply and her head hung low at her serene, resting brother. All of them stood in silence at their lost family member, for long minutes that felt almost like days with no words spoken. While most of them had been dried of all their tears, Ann still sniffed some as she held back from full out sobbing again. Taking some mercy on her heart, the king releases his grip on the mattress and motions everyone to follow him out. (Likely not in the right mind to give his requiems immediately.) One by one, they all filed out of the room. Only Ann hesitates until Ryuji urges her forward with a gentle pat on her shoulder and closes the door behind him. 

The room is quiet until a crow fairy and feline, that had been waiting patiently outside the castle window, come rushing in through it. The fairy placed the cat down softly on the cold ground before he turned to his dearest friend. Who is blissfully unaware of either of the intruders being in his bedroom. The brunette stalks over to his side, mournfully, leaning over him and his voice in a whisper. "Akira…" 

The tuxedo furred one hops onto the bed as well but with determination and pressed down a clawed paw against the prince's arm. 

"Wake up, Akira! We're here! I brought Goro with me and he wants to say something!" Morgana demands and Goro can't help but groan some as the oblivious cat tries to stir his owner awake. The cat goes as far as softly clawing into the thick, fabric collarbone of his shirt as he howled in Akira's slumbering face. "Come on! Even you can't be this deep of a sleeper-!"

"Stop it...we're already too late to help him, Morgana…" Goro says, gripping onto his own pant leg. The cat doesn't let up despite his words though, clearly not heading the warning behind them. 

"What are you talking about? He's only sleeping, we just need to-" Goro immediately cuts Morgana's first protest off. 

"That's the point, Morgana...no matter what we do, we won't wake him." Despite the strict tone behind his explanation, the cat still doesn't stop insisting. 

"But if we just keep calling for him-" Goro snarls somewhat and pulls the cat away from Akira when Morgana's claws start to really dig in, blue eyes staring up at him in pure shock at the assault as he's placed on the ground. The fairy is mindful enough to make sure he's not too rough on him and hurt his fragile body, at least. The feline is still confused by his reaction though. 

" **He'll never wake up again, Morgana. I cursed him to stay asleep and no magic or spell in the world can wake him up, even if it's my own, so stop trying. We're already too late."** He snaps before slumping on the bed even more, immediately feeling somewhat guilty for yelling when he never really explained to the cat what the fairy did...yet another big mistake on his part. After all, this was his fault...what right did he have to be angry at anybody else but himself? Discouraging and yet the harsh words have no effect on the cat still. His black triangle ears flatten and he huffs with his chin in the air. 

"...no, it can't be too late. Maybe...we just need help." Morgana said as he hops off the bed and starts to trot over to the door. "Wait here! You'll see, if I just get all of the others here to help...he'll wake up!" 

Goro still thinks that the cat's efforts are useless but he snaps his fingers regardless to let the fellow slip out and slowly shuts the door again, lightly so that it could be pushed open by one nudge of his tiny head. He sighs as his forlorn, ruby eyes fell on Akira again and his fingers grip tighter onto the black pants fabric on his lap. His right feathered wing slips as he moves to face him more and rests it down almost as an extra blanket for the boy. Which he catches the prince smiling at the gesture in his sleep..and then frown with a whimper. The brunette pulled his wing back in almost an instant, careful not to hit or knock over anything. 

"It's okay...you have every right to be angry…" He mutters, laying his arm against the frame of the bed. He brings his wings back over the sheets though because the raven seemed to become even more distressed at their absence...if only he was awake. Goro wondered what Akira would say if he was (considering the unconscious and contradictory actions, he guessed he would still feel as conflicted as the fairy left him)...even more so what he would say to him but what use is words if they wouldn't be heard…? Still, there was never going to be another chance to say them...to tell him...and he felt it fair to give him a proper goodbye. Even if he wasn't awake to respond, he deserved it. A deep breath and he starts to speak. 

"Akira...I...I made a mistake...I lost who I was when my mother died...revenge consumed me...and I forgot things that I shouldn't have. You believed me...and you've said that it's okay for me to be angry about it...but it's far from a valid excuse for what I did…I mean, you got hurt...in many many ways...many horrible ways…all because of me." He glances down at the raven, meaningfully.

"...this should have never happened to you. Whether we stayed rivals or became good friends...like we did...you never deserved this." Goro finds his fingers reaching out to fiddle with the black curls of Akira's bangs as he speaks, attempting to move them out of the way only for them to fall back down over closed eyelids. He chuckles in a broken way as he continues to disclose over the sleeping prince.

"...you want to know what's the only funny thing about this?" He asks him in a whisper, like Akira would sometimes when he was prompting his way into telling the fairy one of his secrets. "...it's not like I don't care about the marsh but...but I can't say I love it...I couldn't say that for anything or anyone for a long time...because I forgot how to...even though I was told never to...and honestly, I didn't think I'd let myself feel or know it ever again." 

Goro inhales deeply, pausing to compose himself when he feels his body begin to tremble and he places his hand over both of Akira's interlaced ones. He started to softly laugh again but not even with false cheer and his vision was getting blurry as his eyes started to burn. "But  **you** , who I despised at the very beginning.  **You** , the heir to the throne of murderers.  **You** , who is nothing but an oblivious fool... **you** were the one who made me remember how great love was…" His voice cracks at the end, his hand holding onto the two in it tighter. So much for keeping composure. Might as well go all out while he's ahead... 

"...I love you, Akira..." He confesses with a croaky voice as his red eyes start to tear up. 

"...I love you and yet...I did this to you...you had all of my heart in the palms of your hands...and I lost you. I made such a huge mistake because I didn't remember one of the most important lessons in my life and you were the one who paid for it…and the worst of it is...when you were trying to be brave…when you were trying your best to understand...I told you that it didn't matter...when I should've at least told you...told you that I'm..." Goro places his other hand over his own, sniffing as he stares down at Akira without looking away. Warm trails of tears making their way down his cheeks, some his neck, as he swallowed.

"...I'm sorry, Akira...and I'll regret not telling you that...everyday...I'm so sorry..." He rasped, breath trembling helplessly as he cried and wailed quietly. He resisted accidentally falling into the raven's chest by removing his arm from the bed frame but he still curls in on himself above him while he clasped their hands together. The tears wouldn't stop coming after the floodgates opened and he almost couldn't say the rest of what he wanted to say. Yet, he manages to tell him one more thing. 

"I can do nothing to bring you back...but I swear...I'll do all that I can to make it up to you...I promise, I won't let anyone or myself hurt you again. Not even for all the crepes in the world will there be the smallest scratch on you, you hear me? Even when you're long buried in the ground, nobody will desecrate your grave. Nobody, as long as I live. I promise you, Akira. I promise." He breathes out, sitting up again and holding Akira's face tenderly in his palms through his whole heartfelt pledge. Still in tears, knowing that he'll never see the gleam of charcoal grey eyes again, he leans his chin down and pecks the top of his dear prince's head before delicately letting him go. The brunette didn't want to leave his side but it's been awhile since Morgana left, anyone could come back at any moment so he couldn't wait for him and needed to leave as soon as possible. He slowly starts to stand up and turns to the window, the dew-eyed fairy ready to bail in his crow form but just as his feet touch the upcoming star-light shining through onto the stone floor…

"...Goro?" A familiar voice calls out softly and he stops in his steps, his teary eyes going wide as he slowly turns around, expecting to only find it to be an aural illusion...but the dark grey eyes of prince Akira are wide awake. (Absent of the glasses but Goro doesn't mind one bit.) Akira is sitting up and gazing back at the crow fairy with an equally stunned expression while his hands held him steady by his lap. Tease the brunette for mushy sentimentalism if you want but it was almost like they were meeting all over again. Though the brunette gulps when he remembers that Akira wasn't awake for his apology and...other things. 

"...Ah...Akira, I-" He starts but the boy cuts him off as he gets up from the bed. 

"You came back?" Akira asks with astonishment and disbelief. Goro's cheeks flush out of habit despite the tense atmosphere (at least he believes it still is…) and he nods slowly. 

"Y-Yes...Yes, I did...but listen, Akira, I-" Goro doesn't get to finish once again, startled when he feels his friend rush to wrap his arms around him and bury his face into his neck. His body being stunned in place. He couldn't see or feel but...he was still sure that the boy was smiling, simply by the way that he spoke to him.

"...you came back~" Akira whispers, sounding close to crying out of joy. The fairy finally relents at this, smiling as he slowly returns the hug and buries his head into the opposite side of Akira. The last of the brunette's tears, which had made their way to his neck, soaking into the prince's shoulder whether they were noticed or not. Honestly, he should've expected the boy to forgive him without an apology but that didn't mean that Goro would let it go. After everything that this poor, too sweet for his own good boy had been through...he was going to get a proper apology, damn it. 

"I swear...stop...being too easy to cheer up." He decides to tease him (although his voice was raspy from crying) and the boy laughs. Even if quieter, it's just like he would in their usual banter. Just like always. How this miracle was happening, Goro didn't care one bit at this very moment...he just wanted to embrace his dear prince again, more than glad to have him awake and alive. Unfortunately though...he isn't allowed the luxury for long. 

"I TOLD YOU THAT HE'D WAKE UP!!!" The gloating feline calls out from the door, only the front half of his body visible as he smugly grinned at him. Likely surprised by the sound of meowing, Akira pulls away from the hug slightly to turn in the direction of the cat.

"Morgana? You're here too?" The raven questions as he released himself from his companion completely, smiling and giggling when Morgana came running. Nuzzling and rubbing at the boy's ankles happily. 

"I missed you too." He cooed to his pet with a smile, leaning over to scritch behind the triangle ears and getting a soft purr out of him. Goro rolls his eyes at the attention seeking feline but his smile stays due to reasons that may or may not have to do with Akira's smile. Though he's struck with fear when he hears other familiar voices coming from the hallway but it is already too late to avoid it. 

"Hold up, you damn ca-!" Ryuji is first to meet eyes with him as he comes charging in and immediately stops on sight. Then Ann. And then finally, Yusuke. In mere seconds of silence, their expressions turn to pure disdain. The blue bird fairy's glare was especially chilling. 

"Y-You!!!" Ann shrieks like a blood thirsty banshee and Goro winces at the booming volume, covering his ears. Morgana is even startled by the abrupt sound, regardless of it coming from his favorite fairy of the trio. 

"Bastard…!!" Ryuji didn't even monologue through his teeth, he went straight for him. Goro yelps as he runs to get away from the infuriated vulture fairy, knocking some things over in his rush. The other two are ready to ambush as well but once the wide eyed prince sees what is happening to his friend, he carefully removes himself from his reunion with his cat and dives to shield the terrified crow fairy. 

"Guys, wait! Stop!" Akira yells, pale arms spread out in front of Goro as he faces down his eighteen year long caretakers who halt at the sound of his voice. They stare at the prince blankly for a moment then Ann speaks up. 

"... **Akira?** " She questions, flabbergasted at what she was seeing. Akira shrugs sheepishly and waves with a smile. 

"H-Hey-" He greets but hisses in pain when Ryuji flicks his forehead. From the brunette's point of view, it was painful to just watch it happen. It was such a clean cut flick!

"Don't cha 'hey' us! We thought you were going ta' die!" The blonde scolds with a growl. By the looks of it, he wasn't really angry but he was just worried is all. More than worried, terrified. Akira saw this right away and frowned guiltily, seeming to take in what happened to him...and likely what the others were feeling when he was found with a pricked finger. When he wouldn't wake up. 

"Sorry...that I worried you guys…" He apologizes and the vulture fairy lets out a long sigh, expression going soft at his guilt. 

"...Don't apologize…I'm...I'm just...really glad to have you back, buddy." Ryuji tells him fondly, ruffling Akira's hair in his usual brotherly manner and the boy grins happily. Ann didn't even say anything, she pulled Akira into a bear hug while her eyes gleamed with happy tears. The prince smiles and returns the hug, exchanging a mutual nod with one absolutely beaming Yusuke. The tall fairy seems thoughtful right after though. 

"As blessed as I also feel, I find it strange that he's awake when none of the maidens over the years have stayed...or even near here, for that matter." He muses out loud and Akira blinks in confusion hearing that statement. 

"Maidens?" He asks, pulling out of his hug with Ann and staring her down for answers. Wanting to know whether Yusuke was spouting weird things again or it had some coherence. Ann's expression drops at this and she face palms herself.

" **I knew we forgot to tell him something!!!** " She shouts in exasperation. Akira only grows more confused and begs to know more even when Ryuji makes a comment about it 'not being that important'. Ann sighs before she starts explaining to him, patiently. 

"As you know...when you were a baby…" She glares at Goro, who was hiding behind the prince and points a sharp nailed pointer finger to him. " **That monster-** " 

"Goro. His name is Goro." Akira corrects without stuttering and Ann pauses in shock at this, trying to process it by the looks of it. Goro was worried at how she'd take it but she simply pointed in the prince's direction. Waving it aggressively at him with the most neutral expression on her face for a moment before stopping. 

"...that's a conversation for later but...alright, Goro. When Goro cursed you and...you know, the whole...eternal slumber junk." She starts somewhat waverly and Akira nods, confirming that he remembers. The brunette awkwardly turns away when he catches the other two fairies glaring at him at that statement. "What we forgot to tell you is that we did find a loophole that could help save you-"

Both Akira and Goro perk up at this. Akira because he never knew this and Goro because he knew about it but not what it was...and that it had something to do with maidens like Yusuke said. Ann keeps going. "I still had yet to give you my gift out of us three...I couldn't wish it away, unfortunately. I'd need to do something mellow so that the curse wouldn't see it as a threat and cancel it out...but I managed to figure something out."

Akira raises an eyebrow at her. "Which is…?" He encouraged her to say. She inhales through her nose as she seems prepared to give the biggest speech ever and she starts to tell it all, word for word. 

" _ 'Prince Akira...there may be nothing to stop you from fulfilling this prophecy...I can’t keep you from the deep sleep you’ll fall into...but I promise you, you will wake up. For my gift...I will give you an escape from your slumber...from the one you truly love and mutually, you’ll wake from your deathly curse to their first kiss.' _ " She finishes with a small bow before adding. "So...over the years that you've been with us, your father has been sending the girls who were princesses to court you and hopefully put a stop to the curse but none of them stayed. Not to mention, I don't think you fancied any of them in that manner either so it doesn't make sense. How could the curse have been bro-?"

The cardinal fairy stops when she sees the prince's eyes are wide open, completely shell-shocked...and his face is turning more and more flushed by the minute. She tries to wave her hand in front of him and snap him out of it but he remains motionless. The crow fairy on the ground blinks at this reaction...but soon falls in a similar state as he remembers the little 'goodbye kiss' he had left on the prince's forehead. 

_ 'Wait…'mutually' _ ?' His ruby eyes meet the charcoal of Akira's. The pieces seem to fall into place in both of their heads as the fairy is examined by him, down from his feet up to his face again. Goro's heart thumps the loudest it has ever beaten at the intent staring...and the newly founded implications behind Akira waking up and the curse being broken.  _ 'No way....no way, he-!' _

"Goro…? Did you…?" The prince simply questions him and Goro feels all eyes on him, critical as all hell. He bites his lips as he hides his face in his arms. Feeling way too exposed to confirm anything...but he would probably make himself look worse if he denied anything so he simply said nothing. Too bad this couldn't have been a more private discussion...but thank Akira, the saint, when he helps somewhat by kneeling down in front of him so he only had to speak loud enough for him. The others could only watch. 

"...it was only on the forehead, I swear." He finally whines, burying his burning face deeper after this. 

"Appreciate that but that's not important at the moment...does this mean what I think it means?" Goro grows shy at this accusation but the prince's voice only comes closer.

"Do...do you love me?" Akira asks and the fairy groans loudly. Never before has he heard the prince this shocked and here he thought that his emotionally constipated self was being so damn obvious this entire time, considering the few times he slipped and got flustered. Then again, Akira could be painfully air-headed sometimes...but only sometimes.

"...Yes...I...I love you, Akira." He knew that Akira felt the same but it didn't make it any easier. Repressing romantic feelings, much less any fond feelings for years and years does that. Thankfully, he was loud enough and he didn't have to repeat himself as he heard Akira gasp...silence...and then…

"Guys, look away." Akira pleads to his caretakers. 

"Wh-?" The brunette didn't hear Ryuji finish asking why as he's stunned to feel calloused palms lift his head up by his chin and soft lips on his own. His legs slack slowly and eventually he feels Akira wrap his arms around his neck as he moves to lean deeper into it. Their chests somewhat closer. It was stupefying at first but he didn't hesitate to wrap his own arms around the prince's sides and pull him closer once he realized what the raven was doing. Along with closing his red eyes that were previously blown wide open. 

It felt like bliss in a way that the sigh of relief from a soldier finding peace after the end of a decade-long battle would feel. If that made sense...it certainly has felt like one hell of a war for the past eighteen years. The point was that it was...euphoric and it made him feel more weightless than he did when he was flying. He couldn't even stop the upset groan that came from him when Akira pulled away to breathe. 

"Hehehe~ You already want more?" Akira teases, grinning like an imp. The absolute bastard. 

"Oh, screw you. I wanted this for about three years so I think my clinginess is a little justified." Goro grumbles but he returns the prince's smile regardless. The corner of his mouth curled up in his usual smirk. The remark only makes the raven chuckle softly as he stays clung onto him. 

"...Try five." Akira simply replies with a grin and the brunette's eyes go wide, his grip on the snickering boy going a little tighter.

"You're joking." Goro accuses, his voice just somewhat breathless and Akira laughs more. Pale cheeks still in shades of reddish pink. Only getting redder. 

"Wish I was, Goro. I wish I was." Akira says, running his pale fingers through the brunette's hair. The crow fairy's expression only showed astoundment as they both held each other, the prince smiling even more at him while he found himself chuckling when really he wanted to punch himself for being so stupid. The both of them probably could've saved themselves so much trouble if they had just fessed up their feelings sooner...if only they weren't so stupidly oblivious and caught up with everything else. 

"Akira, happy for you but... **we're still here, dude** ." Ryuji reminds the prince. When they turn away from each other, Goro sees that Ryuji had turned away from them respectfully like he was asked and kept his back to them. Though he went the extra mile and put his hands over his ears, just in case. Yusuke wasn't looking either but it didn't look like he turned in time because he could see an embarrassed red flush under the hand that was covering the blue bird fairy's eyes. Ann's reaction topped all of theirs though, she had gone and sat herself down at the table in the room. Her paled forehead was held in the same hand of an elbow resting on the wooden surface and she looked like she was zoning back to many years ago. She probably didn't turn away in time either but was too dazed by her shock to tear away at first. Meanwhile, Morgana (who seemed most unperturbed by everything) was trying to coax her out of this state. 

"So-Sorry, everyone…" Akira stutters, seemingly embarrassed by how easily he forgot about them the instant that he kissed Goro but he still smiles tenderly at the brunette. "...just feeling a ton, right now."

"...anything else that I need to know about, Akira?" Ann asks as she's still overwhelmed by all the secrets Akira's kept from him over the past years. The prince sucked in one long breath through his teeth as he removed himself from his new lover. 

"...let's save it for later. When...you're internally freaking out... **less** ." He answers in a quiet voice and Goro can't help but snort at the prince's awkward response. It takes a moment for the suggestion to settle in then the cardinal slowly nods as she gets up. The cat relaxed when he saw that she seemed more like her composed self again. Even if only somewhat. 

"Fair, fair…" She mumbled quietly, clearing her throat before she straightened herself up. Although there were still rushing questions flying by in her head and it showed in her eyes...she only asks one question. "So what do we have to do before that, exactly?" 

"Well…Goro's still considered an enemy to the castle…so we'll probably need to talk to my dad before he can roam anywhere..." Akira reasons and Goro feels his muscles tense up harshly. Right, he cursed the king's son, right in front of the king. The queen too but she obviously wasn't going to be present in the castle...but the king would be. There was also the factor of him and his passed on wife being responsible for his own mother's death so...fear is high, to say the least. Seeming to sense his anxious mood, Akira turns to him with a sympathetic frown. Taking the fairy's hands in his own and lifting them both up from the ground, he tells him reassuringly and kindly. "Don't worry, Goro...you won't have to talk to him by yourself...I'll be there with you every step, okay?" 

"It's...It's just...I know it's going to be hard for me to stay calm..." He can only find himself muttering as he squeezes his fingers on the top of Akira's palms, still holding onto him. The crow fairy bites his bottom lip but he's given one gentle squeeze of the hands back. 

"Can't imagine it will be easy...but again, you're not going to be alone this time. You don't have to handle this by yourself. I'll be there, Goro. He might be my dad...but I will never let him hurt you. I promise." Akira vowed to him and ruby eyes lit up with gratefulness. The way that the raven spoke with conviction reminded him of something. Of how he'd been told once by a boy that he wouldn't ever do the same cruelty to him as what had been done to his mother...and he still believed him. Then and now.

"...thank you." He whispers back, feeling vulnerable but when he was around Akira, that wasn't anything new. A forehead pressed against his own and the gentle prince smiles at him. 

"No need to thank me...now...let's go have a talk with him." Akira urges him, pulling away and letting go of their hands but he hardly moves away from the crow fairy's side, their shoulders touching. Ann sighs at seeing their affectionate actions, still not quite over the things that have been kept from her (and knowing more was going to come to light later) but she is quick to shove the two other male fairies out of hiding from the sight. 

"Come on, you two. We need to get off our butts. The big danger is gone...but Akira still needs us." She orders them before walking up to the chamber doors and opening the left side. Morgana didn't hesitate one second and trots over to help with the right. The vulture fairy and the blue bird fairy (who had finally stopped avoiding eye contact with the prince and the crow fairy) look at each other for a few seconds but they eventually nod in agreement and walk over to the couple, Ryuji guarding the raven's side while Yusuke guarded the brunette's side. Ann and the cat join them as an encouraged Akira and a hesitant Goro get the group moving. 

"You...You're not going to ask more questions first?" Goro questions as they walk down, after watching the trio run to stand with him and Akira without question. Why they would do this for Akira, he understood but…him? All of them are caught off guard by this and the crow fairy is quick to clarify, clearing his throat. "N-Not that I don't appreciate it but…you know." 

They are silent, not saying one word but the one that they least expected to say something considering their earlier state...was the one to start their reason train. Ann. "Akira wouldn't be awake right now...if you didn't care about him even a little…so you had to have changed quite a lot...right?" 

"And as kind as he is...I don't think Akira would forgive you so easily...unless there was a good reason." Yusuke adds, his tone sincere. 

"And as much as I hate to say it...he seems to care about you a whole bunch too...but don't think I won't gut ya' if you get cold feet on him. 'Cause I will." Ryuji growled, pointing a finger with a griffon vulture talon magically grown out from it at him. Though, the boy recedes the lethal digit immediately with a huff when he gets a scolding shout of his name from Ann for the threatening gesture. All things considered though, Goro doesn't feel fear. Surprisingly, he smiles and shrugs it off. 

"Wouldn't even dream of it." He replies with his hand held up in a sign of oath. Ryuji hummed in deep thought, glaring at the crow fairy before giving in and nodding in approval. 

"Good." He only tells him before everyone falls into small conversation as they walk down the stairs. 

-

"Wait...if you were trying to stop the curse from being lifted...does this mean that you were the one pulling all those tricks to make the girls leave?" Akira asks Goro curiously as they come close to reaching the bottom of the long staircase. The crow fairy feigns thought as he shrugged his shoulders before nodding, affirmatively.

"I did have a hand in it, yeah." He discloses. 

"Hold up...then...did you make that one Okumura dude fall into the mud?" Ryuji perks up, out of nowhere. 

"...maybe." Goro replies almost smugly. The memory still cracks him up to this day, albeit not as much as the day it happened though. Same went for Ryuji, it seemed as he started snickering not long after his vague confession. At least until he was elbowed in the stomach by Ann. The prince grinned but he shook his head in great disapproval still. 

"A girl's dress got ruined that day too, Goro…" Akira reminds him, voice strict. 

"I wasn't trying to go for her...if I did, they wouldn't leave. I don't know how good her patience is necessarily...but she had much more restraint than her dad. That much I could tell." Goro explains but with a tone of guilt rather than mischief this time. "It wasn't the worst of my pranks but...after this is done, I do still want to see if we can write an apology letter for all of them...if...that's ok." 

"...I'm sure they all will appreciate that. Especially her." Akira tells him, grinning at the crow fairy proudly. A sheepish smile grows on Goro's lips as he feels his heart sway at the gaze. He's snapped out of the warm feelings when a piercing female shriek rings out through the halls of the castle. Stopping the group in their tracks (along with their banter) and making all of their eyes go wide. 

"Did you hear that?" Morgana and Goro say unanimously. The prince and the other three only heard the crow fairy say this, of course. While Goro is still the only one who hears the cat. Akira is the one who nods and points in the direction of the throne room. 

"I heard it come from there." He insists and they all immediately run to that direction. Ready to face what was going on and when they got there, Goro's heart plummeted to the ground once again in terror. 

"…Shido." He muttered. The eldest fairy stood at the middle of the red carpet leading to the throne chairs that he and the others were gathered around, his arms fighting against the struggling princess to keep her in place and strangling her. While the king laid across the stairs on their right and knocked unconscious, some blood steadily dripping from the top of his head and over his left eye. 

"Fu-Futaba!" Akira gasps, panicking when he recognizes the girl's identity as the princess and his sister. Goro stops the raven right before he could run for her though, holding his arm protectively over the prince's chest. The crow fairy didn't even have to see the puppy eyes his prince gave him to make him do something about it. In one snap of Goro's fingers, Shido hisses and curses when he's struck with red magic, releasing his weak chokehold on Futaba. She gasps for air as she runs toward the group, giving both Goro and Akira intensely confused glances but her brother simply pulls her behind him for safety while the fairies pull the king aside to take care of his wound. Leaving the brunette and his old mentor (who was cradling his burnt arm) in an intense standoff. 

"...Goro, how dare you stop me…?" Shido growls at him, walking only a few steps closer to him. The crow fairy winces at this but stands firm against him. Goro didn't want to fight about this but who knows what the man would do if the younger fairy didn't step in. 

"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be at the old stone castle?" Goro asks back as the man shakes off the pain in his arm and stalks toward him. 

"I was but  **someone** decided to come back and be a 'knight'…" Shido sighs, putting air quotes on the last word and the brunette swallows harshly. His face was going cold and pale...yet he reasons back sternly. 

"We just don't have the same motives anymore. The crown is no longer my enemy...I don't want to fight but if you aim to hurt them...I'm sorry, Shido...but I can't allow you to go any further." Goro says in a flat and authoritative tone but there was genuine regret in his voice. The elder only scoffed in offense at the young's calm warning and crossed his arms. 

"Even after what they've done...you think that they deserve to stand on two feet? That they did nothing wrong?" Shido barks. Akira stares guiltily at Goro hearing that remark, being the only one in the room (besides the two arguing) who knew the meaning behind that accusation. However, his lifelong friend returns it with tenderness and reaches to give his hand in one soft squeeze then turns back to the old fairy. 

"It's not that, Shido...they did something horrible...it will still haunt me...but I've come to realize...it'd do nothing but create more hate if I kept my grudge against them...we almost lost someone who...who made such a great change to his history without even trying...and we almost lost him because of what I did...what you told me to do...I'm honestly lucky that I got this second chance to make up for that mistake so I'm not wasting it. As I said, they are no longer my enemy and that's my final decision. Nothing...and I mean nothing you say can change that." Goro states proudly. Despite the red fuming Shido who, unfortunately, didn't seem at all convinced. He only seemed to repeat the same song and dance of him pointing out his own rage about his wings and how dare the younger one forget everything that happened to the elder. Which Goro didn't get any chance to argue with him about...or rather he couldn't. He wasn't sure what to say to make this matter de-escalate, what would get Shido to open his eyes even a little and his grip on the prince's hand tightened, nervously. Goro clearly didn't want to fight with him any longer and Akira was close to saying something…then there were the fairies, who had been listening to the shouting man in and out...and having one rather interesting debate. 

"Old stone castle...? What other castle besides Sojiro's is around?" Ann asks the other two while she mended the bloody bump on the king's head with her magic. The cut thankfully closing swiftly under the healing spell. It would be a bit before the king woke still though. Yusuke holds his chin in thought for a moment before proposing. 

"Wasn't there the fallen Arisato empire? Last I checked, the castle is in ruins but still standing at it's base." Ryuji's eyes widen at the mention of the forgotten castle. 

"Wait... **that Arisato?** But ain't they like...fifty or more more farm yards away?!" He whispers back, flabbergasted beyond belief.

"Not sure by  **those** estimates but...it is pretty damn far away." Ann sighs but agrees with a nod before asking both of them, a critical look in her eyes. "Doesn't that alone seem...odd?"

"Hmmm yeah...he also said that he has no wings too, right?" Ryuji adds, to which the other two nod in affirmation.

"...it is suspicious that he managed to travel all the way here by foot…not to mention, there's a gate, heavily guarded mind you, at the front of the castle." Yusuke agrees with both of them. His eyes squinted at the tall, bald and cloaked man. The only one that heard them though was the princess. She began to eye up the man herself, curiously. While he didn't have wings, one could argue that he had teleportation magic...but no magic of that nature had been approved as a possibility in the first place. Neither would it make sense for fairies to learn that. And if the hideout was really as far as they were saying...how did he get here in so little time just on his feet? Much less get over the gate without running into any guards? He couldn't have…!

"...unless!" Futaba whispers to herself, her eyes lighten up as she gets an idea. Without any second thoughts, the princess ran from behind her brother to nab at the tail end of the man's cloak tightly with both hands and started to pull. Akira, Goro, and Shido's eyes widen at her sudden attack on the elder. 

"F-Futaba!!!" Akira calls out to her but she doesn't listen as she keeps trying to remove the article of clothing. Twirling along with Shido as he tried to stop her assault, making sure that the sleeves could slip off. 

"L-Little brat! What are you-" He growls at her but grunts when he's tugged back by the force of his bare torso popping free from the black clothing. He rushes immediately to correct himself upwards before he falls but only for his eyes to widen when he realizes what happened as his back is revealed by the young princess.

"He was lying!!! He didn't lose his wings, he still has them!!!" Futaba declared to the room without any stuttering. Certainly enough, there was a large set of wings on his back. However, there was something...off about them. Neither side was missing or unscathed but where they connected at his shoulder blades, they were crooked and not mirroring each other properly. Not to mention there was some deep red, zig-zag scarring underneath the scapulars. Almost like...like he sloppily reattached and sewed them on. It didn't look natural at all. 

Akira was just about to mutter obscenities about the bizarre wing structure but he stops when he catches the blank gaze of Goro. His eyes solely on the borderline grotesque sight that showed before the both of them, almost soulless. 

"Goro...what's wrong?" He asks him, cautiously placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. The fairy finally snaps out of it when he feels the prince's touch, his expression still stunned but slowly turning completely enraged. Akira swears, those red eyes probably could turn dark as blood at this point. 

"Those wings don't belong to him…" He growls lowly. Akira's eyes widen and he looks back to the wings again. Black, he notices...that is the color of the pair on Shido's back...more up close and personally, they look familiar...Akira recognizes the wings immediately...

  
...It's  **crow** wings that he sees. 


End file.
